4(o9 
rR334 




Class __ilii__ 
Eook Ji'^3 4 



THE 




D^ ^LOMATic yea::i 


1 
1 


BEING 


! 
1 


A REYIEW OF MR. SEWARD'S 


1 


i J[0ieign Carresponknce 




OF 




1863. 




BY 




A NORTHERN MAN. 


1 


— -i»» ■ '^^ — ♦^■- — 


if 

1 


PHILADELPHIA. 




1863.' 


1 ' 
1 




f 



V 

1 



THE 



DIPLOMATIC YEAR: 



BEING 



A REA^EW OF MR. SEWARD'S 



Jfoicign Corresioiiticnce 



OF 



1863. 



BY 



A NORTHERN MAN. 



PHILADELPHIA. 



XP^o-^^' 



l1_ "i -•' ( 



THE DIPLOMATIC YEAR. 



Mr. Seward has thrown down another challenge to the 
world, lie has issued a volume — rather more than twice 
as thick as the one he printed a year ago — containing his 
annual correspondence with all" the nations of the earth. 
He invites criticism — or he sets it at defiance ; and in nei- 
ther case, can he or his admirers, (of whom he no doubt has 
some,) complain, if it be fair and manl3^ Such is the aim 
of the following pages — the writer at the outset pledg- 
ing himself to demonstrate, that Mr. Seward's pretensions 
to scholarship, to statesmanship, or to enlightened patriot- 
ism in dealing with the foreign, or, so far as he has had 
to do with them, the domestic relations of our afflicted 
country, are utterly without foundation. 

One disclaimer the author of these pages thinks it due 
to himself to make. In this, or any other adverse criticism 
he is conscious of no motive of private resentment — no 
sense of personal w^rong. At the same time, he cannot 
disguise from those who take the trouble to read what he 
writes, that, viewing Mr. Lincoln's Secretary of State as 
the author and willing abettor of the systematic outrages 
on the liberty of the citizens — on the freedom of thought, 
of speech, and of the presf, which have deformed the gov- 
ernment and disgraced the people (inasmuch as they submit- 
ted to them) — so regarding him, the author would be recre- 
ant to the principles of freedom in which hehas been nurtured 
— faithless to the profesBion to which he is proud to belong. 



— 4 — 

but which Mr. Seward, (himself a hiwyer,) has insulted, if 
he sought to repress the sentiment of indignation at the 
manifold wrongs that have been done — or the less elevated 
feeling, which literary and political imposture always 
ought to inspire. 

It was Mr. Seward who initiated the system of arbitrary 
arrests, and who has made, so far as in him lay, the names of 
Lafayette, and AYarren, and McHenry, infamous. It was he 
who caused at least one person to be arrested, and when he 
bought his way out of gaol by a discreet application of 
money — the possession of which in Bank of England 
notes was his imputed crime — treated the arrest and the 
prisoner's suffering with a coarse jocularity at which Mr. 
Lincoln's kind feeling revolted, though jocularity rarely 
comes amiss to him. It w^as Mr. Sew^ard who, without au- 
thority, even from his chief, and as is generally understood 
from private pique, dating as far back as the formation of the 
cabinet, imprisoned the Mayor of Washington, and was 
forced to release him by Mr. Lincoln's peremptory order. 
It was he who immured in a series of Bastiles the Maryland 
gentlemen — men of refinement, cultivation and unblemished 
character — relying, in the case of one of them, on a docu- 
ment, which proved to be a forgery, as evidence of guilt. 
He continued to hold his post in the cabinet after the blood- 
iest of outrages — for such it literally was — had been com- 
mitted under its authority, in the arrest of Judge Carmichael, 
who was beaten and dragged by soldiers from the bench 
to prison. It was Mr. Seward who, while he kept his inno- 
cent countrymen, his own immediate fellow citizens, in 
prison, discharged Gilchrist, the Englishman, who had 
been held by judicial warrai:kt. and remanded after a 
full hearing before a judge. It was Mr. Seward who 
applauded the Provost-Marshal at Washington for resisting 
a habeas, corpus for a minor, and threatening to imprison, or, 
indeed, imprisoning the officer who brought it. It was 



- 5- 

Mr. JSevvard who placed a sentinel at Judge Merrick's door, 
for the double and'kindred purposes of insult to him and 
intimidation to the electors of Maryland, and so avowed 
it.* It was he who issued the orders of November, 1861, 
forbidding the State prisoners to employ counsel, saying 
that he w^ould find in such intervention " additional rea- 
sons for declining to release them." It was Mr. Seward 
who, at the ver}^ time when he was ostentatiously availing 
himself of the services of Prelates abroad, denied to a pri- 
soner in Fort Warren the privilege of seeing a parish 
priest, in a letter recently published, which, though ex- 
pressed with such clumsiness that no one can tell whether 
vigilance was directed at the penitent or tlie priest, is, in 
any interpretation, most discreditable. f These are some 
of the home doings of the Secretary of State which, en- 
tirely aside from the shortcomings and follies, and worse 
than follies of his foreign policy, exci\se the strong and 
earnest and resentful feeling with which every American, 
be he writer or reader, 'critic or student, must regard him. 
It may be found convenient at this late day, and in the face 
of public opinion in the jSTorth, for Mr. Seward's friends to 
paint him as a conservative and moderate man ; but the 
memory of these wrongs, and the official records which we 

* Lord Lyons, in writing to Earl Russell, Nov. 4, 1861, says: "Mr. Sew- 
ard said that he had already sent me a written answer respecting the seven 
seamen, and that as to the recent arrests, ihey had almost all been made in 
view of the Maryland elections; that those elections would be over in about 
a week's time, and that he hoped then to be able to set at liberty all the Bri- 
tish subjects now under military arrest." Parliamentary Papers, No. 1, p. 
102. 

'• Department of State, Washincton, Nov. 20, 1861. 

f " Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 15th inst., 
with a copy of that which you addressed to Colonel Dimick, on the 15th No- 
vember. This Department, having adopted a rule which precludes all visits 
to political prisoners, even from Ministers of the Gospel of any denomination, 
has hitherto strictly observed it. If, however, the persons themselves shall, 
in the event of sickness, or any other reasonable cause, require the services 
of their spiritual advisers, the rule will be relaxed in favor of any one of 
undoubted loyalty. 

To the Rev. A. L. Hitselberer, Boston College." 



_ 6 — 

propose to examine, are too fresh aud will be too perma- 
nent ever to admit of this. The reader will' make what 
allowance he pleases for the influence on the writer's judg- 
ment of the feeling he thus proudly avows. 

Now let us look at this new volume of imposture and 
note its history, the circumstances of its publication, and, 
within certain limits, its contents. All are characteristic. 

Daunted no doubt by the strictures made on every side, a 
year ago, on the self-abnegation into which Mr. Seward 
seduced the President in relation to foreign affairs, he 
issues this volume under diflerent auspices. Mr. Lincoln, 
in his odd way, has said something about foreign relations. 
Out of the twenty-one printed pages of the Message, three 
were devoted to this topic of admitted interest, and in 
these, are at leafet two statements of fact, on important 
points, for which Mr. Lincoln of course is only indirectly 
responsible, which the evidence shows to be utterly ground- 
less. One is this — and we dismiss it incidentally, if for no 
other reason, because the Chief Magistrate has as. little to 
do with the main drama of diplomacy as the chorus in one 
of Shakspeare's histories. He speaks a few words at the 
beginning, and- then is heard no more. It is a pity those 
few words were not more truthful. . 

"In the month of June last," says the Message, "there were 
some grounds to expect that the maritime powers which at 
the beginning of our domestic difficulties, so unwisely 
and unnecessarily as we think, recognized the insurgents 
as a belligerent, would soon recede from that position' 
which has proved only less injurious to themselves than to 
our own country." 

Here is a positive averment made to Congress that, in 
June, 1862, before the reverses on the Chi ckahominy, there 
were grounds to expect the European powers would with- 
draw their belligerent recognition. There can be no mis- 
take about it. The fact is clearlv stated. The time is 



_7- 

distinctly marked. Now, a reference to Mr. Seward's des- 
patches shows this was not so, and that at no time, least of 
all in June, was there any ground even for the hope. This is 
susceptible of clear proof. 

On the 15th May, 1862, Mr. Adams wrote a despatch de- 
scribing his pathetic appeal to Earl Russell, when he 
" supplicated his Lordship" to withdraw from the position 
Great Britain had thus far chosen to assume, "I sup. 
plicated his Lordship, then, not to compel me to go without 
the possession of the smallest evidence that could refute 
the inevitable arguments that would be drawn from the 
position that Great Britain had thus far chosen to assume 
during this struggle." The Earl's answer to this 
rather undignified appeal is not given, but could not 
have been favourable, or it w^ould have been printed. 
On the 22d of May, Mr. Adams writes that he had 
renewed his application with "little expectation of suc- 
cess," and this time was not disappointed; for he says: 
" His Lordship replied that he did not see his way to any 
change of policy at present," and added (we fear with that 
grim sarcasm which statesmen occasionally indulge in) 
that "we seemed to be going on so fast ourselves that 
the question might settle itself before a great while." 
These letters were received in Washington from the 1st to 
the 10th of June, and not another word from Mr. Adams 
on this subject is to be found during the month, or at any 
time. So far, then, as England was concerned, Mr. Lin- 
coln was utterly mistaken. How was it with France ? 

As early as May 5th, Mr. Seward wrote to our Minister 
there on this subject, remarking with 'his characteristic 
felicity of diction that " It will be a study for the historian 
why the European powers on the first sound of the bugle of 
faction, so absolutely abandoned all their former faith in the 
Government and people of the United States." On the 
IGth, Mr. Dayton, in a popvscript, pays Mr. Adams had told 



- 8 - 

bim of his failure in London, and he thinks he had better 
not be importunate in Paris; and on the 22d be wrote that 
"without further aid he could do nothing." On the 26th, 
the same thing was repeated, with the addition of the ex- 
pression of a hope that the Rebels might not know of the 
failure, for, says he, in italics, " A knowledge of the de- 
nial of the application would very much encourage the rebels 
in their hopes." On the 2d of June, Mr. Dayton says, " I 
have already informed you to what extent this point has 
been pressed upon the attention of the French Govern- 
ment, and scarcely suppose, you desire me, under existing 
circumstances, to go further. Indeed, after what has been 
said here, I don't see how it is possible to do so at present." 
This despatch was received on the bth June, and was com- 
municated to the President, so Mr. Seward distinctly says, 
and on the 20th, he wrote to Mr. Dayton a long harangue 
(for it can be called by no other name,) about " the popu- 
lar mass surged by the voice of demagogues," and "a Con- 
federacy of discordant States bound by a jiaien cord," and 
on the same day, it being Mr. Seward's fashion to write at 
least two despatches, (on one day he wrote three,) per diem, 
he sends one which we print in full, in order to clinch the 
demonstration that, when Mr. Lincoln in his message said 
that, in June, there was ground to expect the European 
powers would withdraw their recognition of the South as a 
belligerent, he ought to have known, and his Secretary of 
State did know, that he was saying what was not true.* 

" While the President regrets that, in your opinion, 
" there is no immediate prospect of success in inducing 
" the Government of France to rescind the declaration 
" of neutrality which it adopted last year, he does not 
" at all doubt the fidelity and earnestness with which you 
" have presented the subject ; and he has intended to leave, 



*The only possible authority for th.e statement in the Message is a rumor 
that reached Mr. Adams in August, and which he says he did not credit. 



_ 9 __ 

" as he still leaves, the prosecution of that object to your 
" own discretion, in which he reposes the utmost coniidence. 
" A change of position b}- the maritime powers is, in his 
*' judgment, essential to an early and complete restoration 
" of commerce between this country and Europe. But 
" the interest of those powers in that restoration is no.w 
" fully as great as our own. Having submitted our con- 
" victious with frankness, and enforced them with argu- 
" ments derived from a full knowledge of the condition of 
" things in this country, we can now cheerfully leave the 
*' subject to the consideration of parties so deeply interested. 
*' It is proper that you should understand that the British 
*' and French Governments do not at all hesitate to suggest 
" to us continual modifications of a blockade, unquestioh- 
" ably lawful in all respects, with a view to fljcilitate their 
" acquisition of cotton, while the concessions already made, 
*' seem to the President to entitle us to the exercise of some 
" reciprocal liberality on their part." 

But why this falsification ? The secret is revealed in the 
sentence of the Message which follows the one we have 
quoted, and which was written when Mr. Lincoln's military 
antipathies were at white heat, and when everything, de- 
feat at home, disappointment abroad, was to be attributed to 
military failures. He says immediately after speaking of 
this alleged frustration of his hopes abroad, "But the tem- 
porarj' reverses which afterwards befel the national arms, 
and which were exaggerated by our own disloyal citizens 
abroad, have hitherto delayed that act of simple justice." 

Here then is another positive ? ssortion which we regret 
to say is equally groundless. That there were military 
reverses, especially on the Peninsula, during the closing 
week of June, from the battle on the 26th to the arrival 
at Harrison's Landing on the 2d July, is certainly true. 
It was one of the weeks of Mr. Lincoln's panic at 
Washington, when he and his counsellors had so directed 



— 10 — 

the Federal army as to scatter it fruitlessly everywhere, and 
to prepare it for the crushing defeat of a month hiter. But 
Mr. Seward could, or would not see reverses, and was 
busy issuing prophetic bulletins to his agents abroad, which 
quite justify the bad name the word has earned. Arch- 
Bishop Hughes had been attending to the ultramontanists 
on the Continent; Bishop Mcllvaine was in England, 
taking care of Lord Shaftesbury and the evangelicals; and 
Mr. Weed was directing the Prelatical team. " The army 
of General McClellan," wrote Mr. Seward, on the 2d June, 
"will be rapidly strengthened, although it is already 
deemed adequate to the capture of Richmond." "No 
American now indulges any doubx that the integrity of the 
Union will be triumphantly maintained !" On the 24th, 
he adopted a pensive and interjectional style to Mr. 
Adams, "You tell me that in England they point to the 
delays at Richmond and Corinth, and they enlarge upon 
the absence of displays of Union feelings in New Orleans 
and Norfolk. Ah ! well, skepticism must be expected in 
this world in regard to new political systems, insomuch as 
even the Divine revelation needs the aid of miracles to 
make converts to a new religious faith."* On the 30th, the 
day of the bloody battle of Malvern Hill — on this day of 
sorrow and blood — the sound and scent of w^hich reached 



*Mr. Seward is fond of what we may call the interjectional stjle. In a 
letter to the Minister in Belgium who, in a fit of despondency, had written re- 
commending some tampering with the press — the nature of which does not 
appear, the despatch being suppressed, the Secretary says: "How could we 
attempt to regulate the press of Europe when we cannot regulate our own ? 
Where are the funds which would be necessary? Who the agent that could 
be trusted with them? What an endless chapter of political intrigues should 
we not be opening ! Who in our country has the skill to conduct them ? JVo, 
no." (p. 6G0.) Apropos of the press abroad, there is a despatch from Mr. 
Motley (p. 571) which warrants a suspicion that the foreign press is some- 
times enlisted in the Federal cause. He sends to the Department and it is 
reprinted here, a long extract from a Viennese paper, which concludes with a 
pasf-age which Mr. Motley may understand, but we do not, "Nothing is easier 
than to show up apparent inconsistencies and aesthetical shortcomings in many 
of Mr. Lincoln's actions of state as is done by the English Findars of 
felavcrv. tl.e Times, and Saturday Revi«(w." 



— 11 — 

for many a long mile, tlie Secretary was in the City of New- 
York on one of those strange ubiquities which seem, now-a- 
days, to afSict Secretaries and Presidents, taking counsel 
with Governor Morgan and Mr. Weed, and talking jocu- 
larly for the newspapers. In his absence, Mr. F. W. Sew- 
ard wrote abroad that " everything was right, and that Gen. 
McClellan was nearer Richmond than before, and held his 
ground," and a week later, Mr. Seward himself wrote 
what now we read with wonder, that "every one of 
the battles was a repulse of the insurgents, and the two 
last which closed the series were decided victories," that 
General McClellan's modest conduct," (such was then the 
cue) "will be read with interest and admiration," winding 
up with one of the strange flourishes with which he con- 
cludes not a few of these odd documents. 

"If, as fatalists argue, a certain quantity of human blood 
must flow to appease the dreadful spirit of faction, and 
enable a discontented people to recover its calmness and its 
reason, it may be hoped that the needful sacrifice has now 
been made. If the representative parties (?) had now to 
choose whether they would have the army where it is and 
as it is, or back again where it was and as it was, it is not 
to be doubted that the insurgents would prefer to it the po- 
sition and condition on the Pamunkey, and the friends 
the one now attained on the bank of the James. The in- 
surgents and the world abroad will see that the virtue of 
the people is adequate to the responsibility which Provi- 
dence has cast upon them." 

Now, wh'ile we do not, in the least, doubt that the virtue 
of the people is adequate to any responsibility, we may be 
excused, after such a rigmarole of misrepresentation as this, 
for a little distrust of the virtue of some of those who have 
been elevated a little above the popular level. 

The truth is, that if there were reverses which disloj-al 
men exaggerated, Mr. Seward throughout, even to his con- 



—12 — 

fidential agents, persisted iu deiiyiug them — that these re- 
verses, whether precisely stated or exaggerated, had no 
Buch influence abroad as Mr. Lincoln now attributes to them; 
and that the whole fabrication of effect and cause is an un- 
worthy afterthought designed to carry out the system of 
malignant t^pite at the Peninsular Generals, which began 
with McClellan's removal iu ISToveraber and ended (if ithaa 
ended) in the dismissal of General Fitz John Porter iu 
January. 

Thus did Mr. Lincoln, at Mr. Seward's bidding, usher in 
his reference to foreign relations, with what we may mildly 
term a misrepresentation. It would have been better for 
his fame, (if such a word can be so applied,) if, as last 
year, he had said nothing about them. 

But we do not stop here. The message thus opens, 
*' The correspondence touching foreign affairs, which has 
taken place during the last year, is herewith submitted, in 
virtual compliance with a request to that effect made by 
the House of Representatives near the close of last session 
of Congress." One would suppose from this, that Congress 
had expressly or, by implication, solicited the publication 
of this huge volume. No such thing was dreamed of. 

On reference to the record we find that, on the 9th of 
June, 1862, Mr. Cox, a Democratic member from Ohio and 
one of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, offered what 
we suppose to be the resolution referred to. It is not very 
precise in its terms. It has no reference to future corres- 
pondence. Mr. Cox accompanied it with a bri3f speech, in 
the course of which he said that, as Parliament had pub- 
lished part of the correspondence, he wished to have any 
omission supplied.* He then added he was happy to say 

* The Ministry did lay before Parliament. Mr. Seward's correspondence of 
1861, printing it from the copy he furnished, omitting nothing:, adding nothing. 
What the motive was, we do not pretend to divine. Mr. Cobden, in his speech 
last summer at Rochdale, intimated that the intention was not at all compli- 
mentary. Lord Lyons' despatch to Earl Russell, sending a copy of it is very 
significant. — Parliamentary Papers, No. 1., p. llo. 



— IS — 

that he coulci confidently assure the House that the best 
understanding existed between ns and the European 
powers. Every one familiar with the action of Congress 
knows that between the State Department and this Com- 
mittee there is and ought to be a close sympathy — a semi- 
confidential relation which overrides political opposition. 
In fiict, under existing circumstances, Mr. Cox, Democrat, 
from Ohio, is closer in aflSnities to the Secretary than some 
of his party friends, or certainly than the Chairman of the 
Senate Committee. Such a resolution would not have been 
oft'ered, or such an authoritative speech made, but at the 
prompting, or with the concurrence of the Department. 
Yet, on the day that Mr. Cox was, with the assent of Mr. 
Seward, felicitating himself on the cheerful prospect of 
perfect tranquillity of our foreign relations, and fancied he 
saw 

" The birds of calm brooding on the charmed wave," 

on that very day, the Secretary, at the other end of the 
avenue, was writing a pettish, irritable despatch to Mr. 
Adams, indicating his regret and the President's at the 
very unsatisfactory condition of things. "It is impossible," 
said he, "here to understand the policy by which the 
British Government is persuaded that the sensibilities of 
this country upon the subject of its sovereignty and true 
independence, in such a crisis as this, can be wisely disre- 
garded." Mr. Cox was deceived. There really, in 
all this, seems to have been a tendency to indirectness, a 
facility of disingenuousness which threatens to revive for 
Mr. Seward the nick-name long ago aflaxed to a British 
Statesman — the Malagrida of our diplomacy. 

One other remarkable instance of the same sort of thing 
may be cited, and with it, we dismiss this very disparaging 
and unpleasant view of Mr. Seward's public action. 

On the 12th July, 1862, he wrote to Mr. Adams that 
*^ This transaction will furnish you a suitable oocasion for 



— 14 — 

informing Earl Russell that since the Oreto and other gun- 
boats are being received by the insurgents from Europe 
to renew demonstrations on our national commerce, Con- 
gress is about to authorize the issue of letters of marque 
and reprisal, and that if we find it necessary to suppress 
that piracy, we shall bring Privateers into service for that 
purpose and, of course, for that purpose only." 

Here again is a distinct and positive averment, "Con- 
gress is about to issue letters of marque and reprisal." 
I^ow, Congress was about doing no such thing, and Mr. 
Seward knew it. Never was there a more deTplorahle Jiasco 
than the feeble attempt made by the Executive to induce 
Congress to authorise letters of marque. A bill to that 
effect w^as introduced by Mr. Grimes, of Iowa, on the 12th 
July, the date of Mr. Seward's letter, and was met with 
such a storm of opposition from the Republican Senators, 
that it was scarcely allowed to be read. It was called up 
two days later, the mover naively saying, that, in intro- 
ducing it, he was not representing himself or his own 
opinions, but the wishes of the Administration, and on the 
15th, three days after the Secretary had said that " Con- 
gress is about to authorize letters of marque," it was, by 
common consent, dropped — not a single Senator saying a 
word in its favour — and has never been heard of since. It 
was not even alluded to in the House of Representatives, 
and we search in vain in this volume of despatches for any 
correction of this grievous error or mis-statement. It looks 
very much as if the action of Congress, such as it was, was 
invoked in order to verify Mr. Seward's threat, and not 
that Mr. Seward told the truth as to the action of Congress. 
And this is thought to be fair play — this is skillful diplo- 
macy in the nineteenth century ! In former days we read 
of ambassadors of foreign States being watched and their 
despatches stolen and read. Lord Chatham, who was any- 
thing but a trickster, employed spies and detectives to dog 



the steps of the French minister in Loiulon in ITtll. Sir 
Joseph Yorke was suspected of taking liberties with rebel 
correspondence. Mr. Fox and Lord Shelburne, though 
in the same cabinet, had each an agent in Paris in 
1782. Lord Malmesburj was not over-scrupulous. All 
sorts of devices were once resorted to, and rnay be so still, 
for aught we know. But, in a small way, Mr. Seward's 
tortuousness has no parallel, for he seems to think that it is 
rather a clever thing to mislead one of his own ministers 
abroad, as well as the Government to which he is ac- 
credited, by the positive assertion of a fact which was no 
fact, and tben, not only never to correct the mis-statement, 
but to publish it to the world as one of the trophies of his 
statesmansliip. He has vastly improved on old Sir Henry 
Wottons' apothegm. It is no wonder that Mr. Adams was 
all the time begging to be told the truth as to what was 
going on at home.* 

Such are some of the flagrant instances of want of can- 
dour, not onl3' in the papers themselves, but in the manner 
in which they have been introduced to the public — and we 
willingly, after this exposure, which, for the sake of what 
is kft of our country's character, we regret the necessity of 
making, pass this part of the subject by. 

Before considering the substance of this volume, let us — 
for our pledge of demolition extends to Mr. Seward's pre- 
tensions as a scholar and a writer — say a few words on its 
literary merits. It is, if possible, worse than Volume first. 
One would think that at this time of day, in the effulgence 

* There is something touching in Mr. Adams' prayer for precise informa- 
tion, uttered in answer to a tremendous essay on international ethics from 
the Secretary. "1 do not like," says he, (p. 23) "to be obliged to confess, 
when asked questions by persons who ought to know, touching the movements 
and policy of the Government, that I am not able to answer them." " I am 
sometimes questioned here," wrote poor Mr. Dayton, " by parties in the Gov- 
ernnaent, as to the future coarse of events in the United States, and fear 1 inJ* 
dicate an unwarrantable ignorance, for I am constrained to say that I know 
nothing beyond what is common to all the world, while the Government and 
diplomats here take it for granted I ought to know a great deal more." — Vol. 
I., p. 240. 



of ef.lueatiou, no one would question that the st^le, the 
mode of expression of a Secretary of State, or even a Presi* 
dent, was a fair subject of comment. Yet there are those 
who think, or pretend to think, either, that anything like 
literary criticism is a small business, or that, as in this case, 
the grave, didactic essays, or the scribblings, the light con- 
tributions from high executive officers, are too sacred to be 
approached or commented upon, except reverently. Be- 
lieving, as we do, that no right thinking man can write, we 
will not say badly; or clumsily, or ungrammatically, but as 
Mr. Seward writes — in other words, that no man, who 
writes as Mr. Seward does, can be a perfectly right-minded 
or clear-sighted man ; believing this, we hold the w^ritings 
of such men perfectly fit subject of criticism. And so it is 
all the world over. A recent writer has well said that 
" There is always a dignified, straightforward way of say^ 
ino' thinsfs, and the sooner it is cultivated by those who 
frame public documents which all men are expected to 
read, the better." It is this very simple dignity of style, 
this straightforwardness, in which Mr. Seward's composi- 
tions are so deficient. To describe his rhetoric as sopho- 
moric, is to use a mild term. It is radically defective in- all 
the elements of good style, and the more he writes, the 
worse it becomes. It is pretentious to an extreme point. 
It is stilted. It is flippant. It is feeble. It is distress- 
ingly obscure. He is grossly inaccurate in his general 
knowledge, and yet excessively fond of parading it on all 
occasions, fit and unfit. He indulges in technicalities, and 
writes one day like a professor of mechanics (p. 179), and 
the next like a horse-jockey (p. 105). Let us relieve the 
gravity of criticism by taking a few instances of this, almost 
at random, — throwing perhaps into a note, for the amuse- 
.rfnent, or it may be the astonishment, of our readers, a num- 
ber of specimens of literary bungling with which we do not 
desire to burden our text. Two specimens will suffice here. 



— 17 — 

There is on the eastern side of Hudson's Bay, at least 
fifteen degrees of longitude, and, as the bird flies, a thou- 
sand miles of measurement from the sources of the Missis- 
sippi, a region called "Prince Rupert's Land," perfectly 
well known to every student of Arctic adventure, and, one 
would suppose, to the copying clerks in the State Depart- 
ment. Mr, Seward, writing on the 7th July to Mr. Adams, 
of Commodore Farragut passing the batteries at Vicksburg, 
says : " Thus the last obstacle of the navigation of the 
Mississippi has been overcome, and it is open to trade once 
more from the head waters of its tributaries, near the Lakes 
and Prince Ruperfs Land, to the Gulf of Mexico !" 

So much for geography ; but history fares worse at the 
Secretary's hands. He calls the motto of the Order of the 
Garter " the motto of the national arms " ! He affirms 
with great stateliness, in one of his most elaborate essays 
on matters and things in general, that " Richelieu occupied 
and fortified a large portion of this continent, extending 
from the Gulf of Mexico to the Straits of Belle Isle." 
There is not a college boy who does not know that the 
Cardinal was in his quiet grave in the Sorbonne, and had 
been there thirty years, before the Mississippi was dis- 
covered, either at its source or its mouth. But let the pas- 
sage speak for itself. 

"Rather than do this, I willingly turn away from the 
" spectacle of servile war and war abroad — of military de- 
" vastation on land, and of a carnival of public^and private 
" cupidity on the seas, which has been presented to rae — 
" to set down with calmness some reflections calculated to 
" avert an issue so unnecessary and so fatal, which you may 
" possibly find suitable occasion for suggesting to the rulers 
" of Great Britain. For what was this great continent, 
" brought up, as it were, from the depths of what before 
" had been known as ' the dark and stormy ocean ? ' Did 
" the European States which found and occupied it, almost 
3 



— 18 — 

" without effort, then understand its real destiny and pur- 
" poses ? Have they ever yet fully understood and accepted 
" them ? Has anything but disappointment upon disap- 
" pointment, and disaster upon disaster, resulted from their 
" misapprehensions ? After near four hundred years of 
" such disappointments and disasters, is the way of Provi- 
*• dence in regard to America still so mysterious that it 
" cannot be understood and confessed ? Columbus, it was 
'* said, had given a new world to the kingdoms of Castile 
" and Leon. What has become of the sovereignty of 
" Spain in America? Riclielieu occupied and fortified a 
*' large portion of the continent, extending from the Gulf 
" of Mexico to the Straits of Belleisle. Does France yet 
" retain that important appendage to the crown of her sove- 
" reign ? Great Britain acquired a dominion here, surpass- 
" ing, by an hundred fold in length and breadth, the na- 
" tive realm. Has not a large portion of it been already 
" formally resigned ? To whom have these vast dominions, 
" with those founded by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and 
" the Swedes, been resigaed, but to American nations, the 
" growth of European colonists and exiles, who have come 
" hither, bringing with them the arts, the civilization, and 
" the virtues of Europe ? " 

It is not to be wondered at, that poor Mr. Adams groaned 
in spirit under such a style of despatch-writing as this, in 
which interrogation and declamation are so strangely com- 
mingled, and all the scraps of imperfect knowledge, histor- 
ical and ethnological, which Mr. Seward ever had, are 
collated in order to fill the diplomatic mail bag. It is, 
however, when poetry and history combine that the pecu- 
liarities of the Secretary's rhetoric, to use his favorite 
phrase, " culminate."* Witness jthe despatch to Mr. Har- 

* In a short despatch to Mr. Motley (p. 550) he says : " Passion is as 
natural a condition for nations as for individuals. Secession is a popular ex- 
citement, disturbance, passion. It was needful that the new popular passion 
should culminate before it could be expected to subside, and to do this, it musf 
have time. The culmination at home and abroad could be hastened or delayed 



— 19 — 

vey, on the 4th of August, in reply to the information natu- 
rally enough given by that gentleman, though in rather 
grandiloquent phrase, that he had attended the ceremony 
of laying the corner-stone of a monument to Camoens. 
Lest we may do injustice to this gem of the collection — 
for so Mr. Seward evidently regards it — the despatch being 
exclusively devoted to the one topic of the adventurous 
poet of the East, we quote it in extenso, begging our read- 
ers to observe the graceful allusion, at the end, to the Por- 
tuguese slav^^ trade, with which poor Camoens had no more 
to do than he had with the discovery of the continent — he 
dying at Lisbon in, 1579, and the Portuguese traffic in 
slaves in this hemisphere beginning in 1630. 

"Department of State, ) 

" Washington, August 4, 1862. j 

" Sir : — Your despatch of June 29, has been received. 
" The erection of a monument in Lisbon to the memory of 
" the immortal poet of Portugal was not merely an act of 
" national justice and a proper manifestation of national 
" pride. It illustrated the eclectic, conservative faculty of 
" nations, by which they rescue and save whatever is great, 
" good, useful and humane from the wrecks of time, leaving 
" what is worthless vicious, or pernicious to pass into ob- 
" livion, 

" The incident seems doubtless the more pleasing to us 
*' because it occurs at this conjuncture, when we are en- 
" gaged in combatting, in its full development, a gigantic 
" error which Portugal, in the age of Camoens, brought 
" into this continent. I am. Sir, your obedient -servant, 

" W. H. Seward. 

The whole correspondence with Mr. Harvey, we may 
incidentally remark, is redolent of that rhetorical perfume 
to which Mr. Seward is so much addicted. We add a 
specimen — being the first of the series — noting in passing 



— 20 — 

our entire uuconsciousness of the meaning or appropriate- 
ness of the opening sentence, as to what the educational 
question is, and what Mr. Harvey at Lisbon has to do with 
the French Emperor. 

" Washii^gton, July 9, 1862. 

"Sir: — Your despatch of June 5th was received. I 
" think the Portuguese government and nation are to be 
" congratulated upon the solution of the educational ques- 
" tion, which the French Emperor has so quietlj and 
" promptly effected. 

" How much the old European nations suffer from the 
" immobility of classes and masses which this new nation 
" needs ! We could receive and employ all the con- 
" scientious teachers of Europe without fear of danger 
" from their imputed heresies in politics or in religion. 
" France, Belgium and England are agitated and excited to 
" make war against and destroy us by classes of persons 
" thrown out of employment, who, if they shouid make 
" their way here, would find abundant and harmless occu- 
" pation, with large rewards. Indeed, some of them might 
" become founders of States which would, at no distant 
" day, become as great as those which are disordered by 
" reason of their wants. Let us hope that the European 
" mind may be sagacious enough to discern that the cure 
" for all the social evils in both hemispheres is migration 
" of surplus population to regions where population is 
" deficient. If it does not like us of the United States, 
" why should Spanish America be longer left to languish 
" for want of the invigoration which European emigration 
" would afford." * 

* The practical good sense of the Portuguese Minister of State is shown in 
his answer, so artlessly reported by Mr. Harvey, to the request to exclude the 
Confederate steamers from the Western Isles. "The Viscount Bandeira was 
frank enough to say to me that the islands in question had been used and 
abused by corsairs and pirates during centui-ies — that they were exposed and 
unprotected, and therefore might be so employed again, and that our best 
plan would be to send a sufficient force there to protect American ships 
against threatened depredations, and to punish the criminal offenders." — 
Page 388. 



— 21 — 

We have room but for two other ludicrous instances ol 
Mr. Seward's mode of composition. 

In a despatch to the Dutch Minister, Mr. Van Limburg; 
for the Netherlands seem to have had trouble on both sides 
of the Atlantic, with Mr. Pike of the Tribune at the Hague, 
and General Butler at New Orleans, Mr. Seward thus oddly 
describes the functions of his own department : 

" It appears beyond dispute that the person of the Consul 
" was unnecessarily and rudely searched ; that certain 
" papers which incontestably were archives of the consa- 
" late were seized and removed, and that they are still 
" withheld from him, and that he was not only de- 
*' nied the privilege of conferring with a friendly col- 
*' league but was addressed in very discourteous and disre- 
" spectful language. In these proceedings the military 
" agents assumed functions which belong exclusively to the 
" Department of State, acting under the directions of the 
" President." 

For referring to the other, we crave some indulgence, 
being quite sure that, were it found anywhere but in a 
volume of grave diplomatic papers, its grossness would be 
inexcusable. Even as it is, we refer to it cautiously. There 
is — every adult reader is»aware — a euphemism by which 
when a household is gladdened by the birth of a babe — the 
convalescence of the mother is described in technical and 
courtly phrase — " that the mother is "going on as well 
as could be expected." It has been reserved for Mr. 
Seward to embody this phrase in a diplomatic despatch 
with a degree of obstetrical circumstantiality which is very 
remarkable. Writing to Mr. Adams, on the 18th of July, 
1862, (and we beg the incredulous reader to verify our 
literal quotation,) he says : 

"All the rivers, canals, lakes, and railroads before men- 
tioned, are free from obstructions ; Vicksburg is besieged 
and must soon fall, Mobile and Charleston will fall soon 



-22- 

thereafter. The work of pacification in^the region con- 
cerned is going on as successfully as could be expected. You 
hear of occasional guerilla raids, but these are only the 
after pangs of revolution in that quarter which has proved 
an abortion.'''' 

It is the insensibility to decorum manifested in so nasty 
an illustration that accounts for what otherwise would be 
an inscrutable puzzle with all men of the least taste, or 
experience in public affairs, how a Secretary of State, who 
must necessarily suffer from the recoil of his own follies, 
eould authorize, still less instigate the publication of many 
of the confidential papers in this volume. The simple 
truth is, that did not foreign statesmen regard, (as we hope 
they do,) the Lincoln Administration, and especially Mr. 
Seward, as in every sense exceptional and irresponsible, 
there is enough in this volume, its authorized publication 
being the offence, to embroil us with every nation beyond 
the jagged edges of what is left of the United States. Es- 
pecially is this the case with the power with whom just now 
friendship seems most precarious, the Emperor of the 
French. It is full of revelations not only of Mr. Adams' 
private movements and conversations in relation to the 
French operations in Mexico, and his exultation at the dis- 
appointments which seemed to attend them, but of an ela- 
borate and systematic, tho' apparently ineffectual, intrigue 
at Madrid to detach Spain from its French connexions, all 
of which may have been right enough in themselves, but 
ought not, unless offence was intended or foreign war 
desired — to have been authoritatively published. There is 
enough in the foolish book to exclude Mr. Adams from 
anything like unreserved social or official intercourse in 
London, and we can imagine Mr. Dayton's dismay and per- 
plexity if Mr. Druyn de I'Huys, or the Emperor himself 
were to ask an explanation of the following passage from 



— 23 — 

a despatch of Mr. Pike at the Hague, now given to the 
world under the imprimatur of our Government. 

" The movement in Mexico," he writes on the 28th May, 
"as viewed here, in well informed circles, is regarded as de- 
veloping a purpose on the part of the Emperor to strengthen 
his prestige and his cynasty by coming forward as the sup- 
porter of the church party in that country. Though not in 
favor with the Catholics, he makes himself necessary to 
them in Rome, and he seems to aim to occupy a similar po- 
sition in Mexico. It is undoubtedly in harmony with his 
plans to put money in the pockets of influential supporters 
of the empire, by giving value under a new regime to ex- 
isting Mexican securities in their possession which are at 
present worthless." 

A darker or more disparaging insinuation could not be 
made. The same remark applies with equal force to the 
exposure of the kindred follies of Mr. Clay and Mr. Motley, 
which, were there there any sense of propriety left at Wash- 
ington, ought, instead of being ostentatiously published, to 
be buried in the deepest pigeon-hole of the depart- 
ment. The indiscretion extends everywhere — even where 
words of civility are used. Mr. I>e Stoeckel, than whom 
the diplomatic body can boast of no more shrewd and far- 
seeing member, made so by his long residence here and his 
thorough acquaintance with all our public men, Mr. 
Seward included, is described as a well-meaning indi- 
vidual, "the excellent Russian Minister," but too tender- 
hearted for the crisis, and too apt — poor deluded man — to 
look at the ghastly aspect of a war which Mr. Seward else- 
where describes as not " a mild one." Mr. Berti- 
natti and Baron Ricasoli learn from this book that while, 
at one time, Mr. Seward is exuberant in his love for 
their sovereign, and Mr. Marsh boasts that " in no part of 
the continent was the sympathy with the Government of 
the Union so strong and universal as in Italy," meaning 



— 24 — 

liberalized Italy, at another Mr. Seward thanks Cardinal 
Antonelli for his especial sympathy. "The good wishes,' 
says he, " expressed by that statesman are such as 
the Government expected from hira, and his convictions 
that, in rejecting all ideas of concession or compromise 
with our domestic enemies, this Government is pursuing 
its proper and necessary policy, are as creditable to his 
enemies as they are gratifying to the United States"* 
l^or is this all. In July, 1861, in the midst of the first 
Bull Run panic, as this volume admits, the Execu- 
tive invited Garibaldi to take a high command, we believe 
a Major-Generalship, in the Federal army. The offer was 
declined for the reason that the policy of the administration 
was not then sufficiently advanced in the direction of 
Abolition. Mr. Seward now says that it was made with 
the consent of the King of Sardinia, which, if it be the fact, 
gives colour to the belief that as far back as the time we 
have intimated, that government was quite willing to be 



* Mr. Motley sees close parallels between Mr. Lincoln's Government 
and that of Austria. " The Grand Vizier," writes Mr. Morris, " exhibits a 
warm sympathy with the Union cause"' — and the Viceroy of Egypt thinks that 
the war should be prosecuted fiercely, and ' His Highness,' saj's our Consul, 
Mr. Thayer, ' is the son of Mahomet-Ali, and may speak with hereditary 
authority on questions of this kind.' " For fear our readers may not 
estimate the weight of this authority, we quote from a cotemporary, a brief 
statement of Mahomet-Ali's mode of conducting war vigorously : 

" A horrible fate awaited those who had shut themselves up in the Palace : 
they begged lor quarter and surrendered, were immediately stripped 
nearly naked, and about fifty were slaughtered on the spot, and about the 
same number were dragged away, with every brutal aggravation of their 
pitiful condition to Mohammed Ali. Among them were four Beys, one of 
whom, driven to madness by Mohammed All's mockery, asked for a drink of 
water ; his hanols were untied, that he might take the bottle, but he snatched 
a dagger from one of the soldiers, and rushed at the Pasha, and fell, covered 
with wounds. The wretched captives were then chained, and left in the court 
of the Pasha's house ; and on the following morning the heads of their com- 
rades who had perished the day before were skinned and stuffed with straw, 
before their eyes. One Bey and two others paid their ransom and were 
released ; the rest, without exception, were tortured and put to death in the 
course of the ensuing night. Eighty-three heads (many of them those of 
Frenchmen and Albanians) were stuffed and sent to Constantinople, with a 
boast that the Mameluke chiefs were utterly destroyed. Thus ended 
Mohammed Ali's massacre of his too confiding enemies." 



— 25 — 

rid of the adventurous and troublesome cliieltaiu, and 
transfer him to the Federal service here. It was fortunate 
the invitation was declined, for soon after, having taken 
the Archbishop of New York into his confidence, and sent 
him as one of his JSTuncios to Europe, Mr. Seward had to 
extricate himself from his liberal entanglement. The pre- 
late could scarcely reconcile it with his paramount duty at 
Rome, to be a fellow-labourer with one who, like Garibaldi, 
had denounced the Papacy as " the most wicked and loath- 
some government in the world," and on another occasion 
had spoken of it as "a hideous immoral monstrosity." 
Indeed tbere is, in this 'volume, abundant evidence that the 
Papal influence, love for Cardinal Antonelli and the Em- 
peror of Austria, very early triumphed in Mr. Seward's heart 
over all liberal sympathy. The Lincoln administration 
could indeed ill afford to quarrel with the absolutists of 
Europe. But its agents abroad, the subordinate ones at 
least, did not know of this, and accordingly, we find tbat in 
September, 18(32, Mr. Theodore Canisius, our consul at 
Vienna, following the example set, a year before at Ant- 
werp, of his own accord, renewed the invitation to Gari- 
baldi. "The delight," said the simple-minded consul, 
" with which you would be received in our country, w;ould 
be immense, and your mission, which would be to lead our 
brave sofdiers to fight for the same principles to which you 
have devoted your life, would be fully conformable to your 
intentions." This time, unluckily. Garibaldi agreed to 
come, saying, that " so soon as his wounds were healed he 
should be glad to satisfy his desire to serve the Great 
American Republic, which is now fighting for universal 
liberty." They, the consul and the hero, little dreamed of 
the change which had in the interval come over Mr. Sew- 
ard's spirit. He was fighting no longer for liberty, but for 
absolute supremacy and imperial authority. The absolutists 
were smiling on him. The smile must be reflected. Early 
4 



— 26 — 

in October he had received Antonelli's honied words. 
About the same time Mr. Motley wrote to him that the 
" entire sympathy" of Austria v/as with the administration 
in its efforts to suppress, what the historian of the Dutch 
Republic calls, "the mutin-y" of the South. The Turks and 
Egyptians were sympathetic. Mr. Burlingame thought the 
Taepings were on the wane, and Mr. Seward at once and 
roughly recalled poor Mr. Canisius, telling him that 
"at the present conjuncture, every care is necessarily to be 
taken to avoid injurious complications in foreign affairs;" 
that what had been done was " entirely divergent from 
judicious policy," and that Garibaldi was neither more nor 
less than a "rebel." This recall, thus derogatory alike to 
the unlucky consul, to Garibaldi, and, in view of what had 
occurred, to the writer, Mr. Motley was directed to show 
to the Austrian Prime Minister. 

And this revelation of inconsistency, this insult to the 
liberal spirit of the day, this confession of a grievous 
mistake, is put in print as one of the bright trophies of a 
statesman.* 

The stupendous folly, and worse than folly, of the publi- 
cation of this volume cannot, therefore, be too strongly 
state's. Should the normal condition of things at Wash- 
ington ever be resumed, it will, we trust, be a warning to 
all future Departments of State, and an admonition to re- 



* Mr. Seward's despatches to China are "unique." For example, let the 
reader observe the oddity of the following, dated 22d April, 1862: "The 
solicitude you have sutfered, and which was so honorable to your loyalty and 
patriotism, will have been relieved before this time by information that we 
have greatly reduced, if not altogether averted, the danger of foreign war, and 
have, at the same time, obtained a very fair prospect of early domestic peace. 
In view of civil war raging in Greece and in China, and of rising commotions 
in Italy, Hungary and Germany, we may reasonably hope that Europe will 
become less severe and censorious in regard to the unhappy demonstrations 
of faction in our heretofoi'e tranquil and united country." "It is your 
duty," said he another place, " especially to lend no aid, encouragement or 
countenance to sedition or rebellion against imperial authority." 



serve that will never be forgotten. The mischief, w^e fear, 
is (irreparable. 

But what, let us ask, are the actual fruits of this paraded 
diplomacy ? Absolutely nothing — for we undertake, with- 
out effort, to show, 

1st. That there is no ground for the claim put forward 
by Mr. Seward's friends, that he deserves credit for pre- 
venting European mediation or intervention, for the simple 
reason that no foreign power has ever till lately dreamed 
of mediating or intervening, and then, when the attempt 
was indirectly made by France, Mr. Seward knew nothing 
about it. 

2d. That in the only matter in which he took the initia- 
tive and pursued it — the effort to have the belligerent re- 
cognition withdrawn — he absolutely failed, and why he 
failed. 

3d. That it is a budget of blunders from first to last, 
and that the blunders have been committed at the expense 
of his country's traditionary principles. 

Let us examine this subject briefly and fairly, following, 
as far as possible, the easy order of time. 

The diplomatic, like the fiscal year, under our system, 
is not coincident with the old fashioned one of the calen- 
dar. Mr. Seward's year begins and ends in December. 
The close of 1861 was very drear}', and no American, be 
his political affinities what they may, can think of it with- 
out a shudder and a blush. It was the era of the " Trent." 
Scarcely had the Secretary of State bundled up and put in 
the printer's hand, his volume of first fruits of diplomacy, 
scarcely had he, with the air of one contented with labo- 
rious success, written to his favorite minister (p. 274) that 
he now looked to see less disposition abroad to treat our 
flag with disrespect, when the news broke on the American 
public that Captain Wilkes had forcibly taken from a Bri- 
tish steamer the Confederate commissioners, and brought 



— 28 — 

them to this country. So much has since occurred, so 
much blood has been shed and agony endured, so sharp 
have been the spasms of exultation and despair that have 
convulsed us in the progress of this most wretched war, 
that it is not easy to recall distinctly the panic — for such in 
truth it was — of the closing month of 1861, from the day 
the news of the capture came (ISTov. 16) to the day when it 
was known the surrender was decided on. It is not 
worth while to reopen this question ; but looking back on. 
it, as one can do with relative composure, there are one or 
two points now apparent which were not so then, and there 
.is, it will be conceded, a settled judgment on the whole 
evidence, that but for the attitude taken by Great Britain, 
sustained as it was by the unanimit}'' of the world, the Fed- 
eral administration would have evaded what they now pre- 
tend was a voluntary act. In other words, that it was fear 
— reasonable enough — and not the conviction of having 
done a wrong, or the recognition of a principle, which in- 
duced the action of the Government. This it is, and the 
recollection of a narrow escape from a foreign war, wdiich 
causes the slander and the blush. The world will never 
know the miserable secrets of office in that interval. The 
Secretary of State literally hid himself. On the 13th No- 
vember, Mr. Hussell, of the Times, then a prime favourite, 
was dining with Mr. Seward, who pleasantly told him that 
" the English were the great smugglers who sustained the 
rebellion." On the 14th, there was another dinner with 
Mr. Seward, a cheerful game of whist, and " Mr. Lincoln 
dropped in with a new supply of west country jokes."* On 
the 16th came the news, and the administration went into 
"Eetreat." As late as the 25th, they were invisible ; in- 
deed, it would seem they were so till the end of the month. 
(' I have neither sought nor avoided an interview with Mr. 

'^ Russell's " My Diary." 



— 29 — 

Seward," wrote Lord Lyons, ''but it lias so happened, I 
have not seen him, nor, indeed, any member of the Govern- 
ment, since the intelligence of the capture arrived." Then 
comes the message, without a word on thie engrossing topic, 
and the Navy Department endorsement,- and the vote of the 
House of Representatives to throw the prisoners into close 
confinement,, and anxiety deepened ; and so it continued, 
till the 18tli of December, when came " the messenger 
.Seymour," with the seven days' ultimatum, and the omi- 
nous freight of diplomatic urgency from every cabinet in 
Europe. General Scott hurried home, confident of a war ; 
for he did not dream the prisoners would be given up with- 
out more of a struggle. Private letters flowed in, filled 
with alarms and coiinsel, and, among them, one to the Secre- 
tary himself, to which, in the unraveling of this perplexity, 
sufficient attention has not been paid, for it was the only 
one we know of that sus:2:ested the exact course which was 
adopted. Those familiar with Mr. Seward's antecedents 
know his close affiliation with Irish politicians, their sym- 
pathies and antipathies. It is the basis of his intimacy 
mth the Arch-Episcopal incumbent of ll^ew York. On 
the 2d December, 1861, Mr. Smith O'Brien wrote a long- 
letter to his friend the Secretary of State, which must have 
been received at Washington coincidently with Earl Rus- 
sell's despatch, and which gave the clue for the dark laby- 
rinth of difficulty — of impending danger, and threatened 
dishonor — in which he was wandering. "Answer the Bri- 
tish demands," wrote Mr. O'Brien, " in the language of di- 
plomacy. Quote authorities and precedents to show that 
,you are justified by the Law of I^ations, and especially by 
the example of England, in the seizure of these commis- 
sioners. Such discussions will give you time for delibera- 
tion and for preparation ; but lose not an hour in liberating 
the commissioners." This is exactl}?^ what Mr. Seward did, 
and thus, on the face of the evidence, it would seem that 



— 30^ 

to tills Irish liiut is due the result at wlilcli tlie Avorld re- 
joiced and felt relieved, and tlie nation blushed. It is a. 
sad chapter, view it as we may, and "\\'e gladly turn from it. 

One effect, or rather consequence, of the Trent affair, was 
a lit of comparative silence on the part of the Secre- 
tary of State. While, during the rest of the year, the 
average of his despatches is nearly thirty a month, in 
January, 1862, he wrote but ten, and those were brief and 
meagre. The elasticity of his spirit seemed broken. Mr. 
Adams wrote to him on the 10th, and the despatch, 
though acknowledged, is suppressed. Mr. Marsh spoke 
of the "wisdom and skill" of the cabinet, but extorted 
no answer, and again wrote Mr. Adams on the 17th: 
" I need not add my testimony to the general tribute of 
admiration of the skillful manner in which the various dif- 
ficulties and complications attending this unfortunate busi- 
ness have been met and avoided"^and Mr. Seward turned 
with ghastly nausea away from such praises. It was, how- 
ever, while thus abstinent from foreign correspondence, 
that he was engaged actively at home, for, about this 
time, occurred the correspondence with Ex-President 
Pierce, as to Avliich, no words of reprobation can be found 
top strong. One reads it now, with absolute amazement 
that such a violation of decency could have occurred, even 
here. ' 

But, with the lengthening days of February, Mr. Seward 
began to rail}', and in that month, he wrote no less than 
twenty-one despatches, the majority being to Mr. Adams, 
constituting the opening chapter of his new and fruitless 
experiments to persuade the European powers to withdraw 
or modify their recognition of the Confederates as belliger- 
ents. It was chiefly directed to Great Britain. It began 
and continued in humiliation, and ended, as we have said, 
in disappointment. 

Before proceeding briefly to consider this sad story of 



diplomatic bnng'ling-. it is flue to historical truth to say, 
that while Mr. Seward directed his energies — if such tliey 
can be termed — mainly to influence the British cabinet, he 
never seems to have doue justice, or to ha.ye fairly estimated, 
what these and later revelations show was the fair and 
friendly action of the French Emperor. To England, as we 
will show, he was prepared to make any concession — to 
France, he was, if not churlish and discourteous, silent and 
suspicious. Lord Russell (iti the true spirit of the Whigs) 
never was at heart very friendly to us. The government con- 
nived at the fitting out of Confederate vessels, which France 
did not. The spirit of Abolitionism — at this moment as 
acrid as ever in a certain, but, we hope, limited class of Eng- 
lishmen — alone kept in cheek the ads^erse policy of a portion 
of the ministry. It was "the willing to wound and yet afraid 
to strike" policy throughout. It tried to please all sides in a 
surly fashion. Mr. Gladstone said one thing here, and Sir 
George Lewis another thing there. They refused to recall 
Mr. Bunch from Charleston, and yet they never actually 
demanded the release of a prisoner from the bastiles. The 
Russell policy to America was a companion to what had 
been doing in Prussia and Delimark, in Greece and Rome. 

And yet, to this government, Mr. Seward was never 
wearied of making surrenders. Let us see what and how 
fruitless they were. The raemor}'^ of some of them is fading 
away, and ought to be revived. 

On the 4th January, 1862, Mr. Seward wr^te to Mr. 
Adams, transmitting the copy of an unofficial letter he had 
sent to Lord Lyons, together with one- which, " amid the 
intensest heat of the late excitement," he had addressed to 
the Governor of Maine. This is the only reference we find 
to what is, in our estimation, one of the most remarkable 
of Mr. Seward's many freaks — his ofier of a transit to the 
British reinforcements for Canada over the territoiy of the 
State of Maine. The Trent affair was, as we have seen, 



-"82 — 

on!_y partially .settled on the 2(3th December. That is, tbtJ 
surrender of the prisoners was agreed to, but no one can 
read Lord Lyons' despatch of that day without seeing that 
he had grave doubts wliether the apology would be deemed 
sufficient. It proved to be ao, but Mr. Seward did not know- 
it till nearly a month later. lie was right, therefore, in 
speaking of the excitement as still continuing. On the 4th 
January, news reached Washington that a large detachment 
of British troops, intended to garrison our frontier, was 
about to arrive in the steamer "Bohemian." These troops 
were intended, in case of probable difficulty, to fight us. 
They were to be scattered, with others, throughout the long 
line of forts from Quebec to Maiden ; and the artillery 
which accompanied them was to be pointed at Ogdensburg, 
or Lewistown, or Buffalo, or Detroit. They were, in no 
sense, soldiers crossing a neutral territory, for which con- 
sent, when asked, is sometimes given. It was not like the 
transit from Alexandria to Suez, during the India mutiny. 
They were sent to Canada in possible hostility to us. And 
yet the . Secretary of State thought it right, unsolicited, 
and without consulting the local authorities, to send orders 
to the marshal and other Federal officers at Portland to 
give "the agents of the British Government all proper 
facilities for landing or carrying to Canada, or elsewhere, 
all troops or munitions of war, of every kind, without ex- 
ception." One reads such an order now with wonder and 
incredulity*. N^eed any one be surprised that the authori- 
ties of the State of Maine w^ere startled, and remonstrated, 
and that, too, when the invading troops did not come, or 
that they claimed some right over their own soil and their 
own highways? What would have been thought twenty, 
or ten, or five years ago, in our normal condition, had a 
Secretary of State, or President sent an order for foreign 
soldiers, Avith all the accomplishments of war — " munitions 
without exception" — artillery and baggage wagons — cais- 



— 33 — 

sons and ambulances — to pass through the borders of a 
State ? Let it be supposed that the point to be reinforced 
were Windsor or Sandwich, opposite Detroit, to which the 
shortest hne of approach is from New York or Philadel- 
phia ; does any sane man imagine that at either of those 
cities, British troops could be safely landed, to be carried 
over our railways, '* with munitions of war of every kind, 
without exception," especially when it was known and ad- 
mitted that the object of these very reinforcements was war 
on our borders and against us ? I^either Secretary o,f State? 
nor President of the United States has any right, or pre- 
tence of right, to put a foreign soldier on the soil of 
any State, and no one knows this better than Mr. 
Seward. But, in his haste to propitiate Great Britain, he 
forgot it all, and, like every other humiliation to which 
he subjected himself and his country, it was fruitless ; for 
we search in vain through his own despatches, the parlia- 
mentary Blue Books, and the newspapers, for any kind 
word which this act of gratuitous submission extorted. 

This was humiliation in the germ. Let us go on to its 
blushing flowers and bitter fruits. 

The Slave Trade Treaty was the next voluntary sacrifice, 
and as to this, scarcely one word is to be found in the 
volume of which Mr. Seward is so proud. It deserves a 
distinct consideration. 

There were once — when we had a country and a name — 
two traditionary principles closely cherished in the hearts 
of the American people : the absolute sanctity of the flag 
with a denial of the right of police search on the ocean, 
and the Monroe Doctrine. We now think of them as of 
the dead. When in life and vigour^ — and especially is this 
true of the second — they were troublesome and sometimes 
inconvenient, but they had their root in a high national 
spirit, and they expressed a sense of national power. The 

fatuity of Mr. Lincoln's Government has sacrificed them 
5 



o4 

both; the Monroe Doctrine perhaps from ne^tessity, but the 
sanctity of the flag, as we can demonstrate, voluntarily, 
fruitlessly, and, as we think, sbaraefully. Mr. Sewa'^d may 
think nothing of it, but this reversal of history, this reiiuii- 
ciation of ancient policy, gives a sharp pane. When, forty- 
five years ago, Mr. Wilberforce hinted such a surrender in a 
qualified form to Mr. J. Q. Adams, the reply was, " My 
countrymen will never assent to such an arrangement." 
When, six years later, Mr. Rush signed a convention to 
thif efiect with Sir Stratford Canning and Mr, Huskisson, 
the Senate amended it so as to prevent its application to 
the American coasts, and then it was rejected by England. 
General Jackson, in 1834, directed his Secretary of State to 
say to Sir Charles Vaughan that " the United States were 
resolved never to become a party to any convention on this 
subject;" and this, said Mr. Benton, speaking of it, years 
afterwards, was "the true American answer." It was Mr. 
Cass's diplomatic triumph in France to prevent this inter- 
polation into the law of nations in 1841. Mr. Webster 
refused to recognize it in his negotiations with Lord Ash- 
burton, as did Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Everett with Lord 
Aberdeen, even in its new disguise of " visitation." 
''Without intending," said Mr. Webster ia one of his 
gravest despatches to General Cass, "or desiring to influ- 
ence the policy of other governments on this important 
subject, this Government has reflected on what was due to 
its own character and position, as the leading maritime 
power on the American continent, left free to make choice 
of such means for the fulfillment of its duties as it should 
deem best suit^Bd to its dignity. The result of its reflections 
has been that it does not concur in measures which, for 
whatever benevolent purpose they may be adopted, or with 
whatever care or moderation they may be exercised, have 
a tendency to place the police of the seas in the hands of a 
single Power." As recently as 1858, for the continuity of 



precedents is perfect, Presideot Bnchauan said witb em- 
phasis, " The occasional abuse of the flag is an evil far leas 
to be deprecated than would be the establishment of any 
regulations incompatible with the freedom of the seas." 
"I don't want any negotiations," said Mr. Crittenden in 
the Senate, " with Great Britain, or any discussion with 
Great Britain, about the right of search or right of visita- 
tion. That is a subject which is exhausted, for our minds 
are made up about it. I should think it unworthy of this 
Government to enter into any negotiation on the subject." 
" Without referring," said Mr. Dallas in London, " to this 
question more closely, it is a point which is essentially con- 
nected with one of the fundamental principles of the 
American Revolution, that principle being the necessity of 
maintaining on behalf of the great American people, as 
a great community, the independence of their flag. I am 
not now going to argue this question as to visit and search, 
but I should like, on the Fourth of July, to announce to my 
fellow-countrymen, that visit and search, in regard to 
American vessels in timu of peace, is finally ended." " We 
have never," said Senator Seward on the 20th of May, 
1858, four short years ago, " We have never recognized 
this pretension of Great Britain, and we never will. There- 
tore it is that, for twenty years past, I have never looked 
into a law book to ascertain the law in regard to this 
subject. It is enough that the claim cannot be porniitted 
It is enough that it would destroy the equality of nations. 
It is enough that it is a claim on the part of another power 
to exercise vigilance and supervision over the conduct of 
this nation."* 

Great must have been Lord Lyons's delight and surprise 
when, if this record tells the whole story, on the 22d of 
March, Mr. Seward, in hot haste, wrote to him, oftering to 



* Lawrence on the Right of Visit and Search, pagps 91- J17. 



— 36 — 

surrender everything — traditions, prejudice, associations, 
history, everything — in order to put down a trade which, 
according to his own shewing, neither Americans, nor 
English had any part in, and telling him that, if the sug- 
gestion were agreeable, he had the project of a Convention 
ready for signature. His Lordship did not, and could not, 
hesitate. The diplomatic fruit at which every British states- 
man — every Minister in this country, from Sir Augustus 
Foster downwards — had been stretching out his hand, and 
watching anxiously, fell at his feet, Mr. Seward shaking 
the tree. On the same day, (22d,) Lord Lyons agreed 
to it. Before the 28th, the Convention was revised and 
ready for signature, for on that day a further experiment 
was made on Mr. Seward's facility in a suggestion to make 
the treaty perpetual ; and, on the 7th April, the whole ges- 
tation being a fortnight, a compact was made for ten years, 
by which an unlimited right of police search within liberal 
geographical limits was granted to English cruisers, and 
mixed judicial commissions were instituted on the coast of 
Africa, and in the city of New York. It was ratified, of 
course, by the Abolitionized Senate, and is now the law of 
this part of the land. For his share in it, Lord Lyons re- 
ceived what, no doubt, he is on every account well entitled 
to, the honour of the Grand Cross of the Bath. If the vene- 
rable statesman who, in 1824, signed a treaty of this kind 
with Mr. Rush, and who still survives, ever turns his mind 
from the Orient to the Occidental world, (occidental, we 
fear, in ©very sense,) he may be excused for wonder at the 
miraculous -decay in American statesmen, of that fierce, 
obstructive, chivalrous spirit which once snufied danger to 
national honour in any breeze that affected our flag on the 
ocean. 

Since 1842, says Mr. Seward, but one American vessel 
(the Wanderer) has ever landed an African on our soil. In 
March, 1862 (p. 45) be boasted that the blockade of the 



— 37 — 

Southern coasts was as effective as the world had ever known. 
Slaves certainly could not be landed then. The emancipa- 
tion policy was germinating, which, if successful, according 
to the theory of its authors and advocates, would put an 
end to slavery, and of course the slave trade. The Consti- 
tution of the Confederate States, (a surer guaranty than any 
treaty that could be patched up at Washington,) prohibited 
the trade. There was no conceivable inducement at that 
time to make an anti-slave trade compact, unless one is to be 
found, (and this is our theory,) in the willingness to propi- 
tiate the anti-slavery party of Great Britain, and seduce 
Lord Palmerston's Government into a retraction of the 
belligerent recognition of the South. We challenge the • 
detection of any other. We shall presently see how fruit- 
less, how pernicious and, in the estimate of other nations, 
how discreditable it was. 

Fruitless it certainly was, if the end proposed was a 
change in the policy of Great Britain. This volume, in 
which, by-the-bye there is a significant silence as to the 
Seward surrenders, shows that not a feature of the Russell 
countenance towards North and South relaxed, even at this 
sacrifice. The Earl was, if possible, sterner and more cap- 
tious than before. With others in Great Britain, those we 
mean of a different party, the Opposition, whose possible 
accession to power a cautious diplomatist should always 
consider, the effect of this humiliation was positively evil. 
*' The quarrel between Xorth and South," says a leading 
organ of the Tory party, "has given us an opportunity which 
has been used of putting an end to what was left of the 
Slave trade. The dominant party of the Nor(h has not 
been sorry to gain credit cheaply for a certain degree of 
sincerity in their abuse of slavery. The Stars and Stripes 
cannot again, if we show ourselves disposed to enforce the 
treaty obligations into w^hich Mr. Lincoln has entered, even 
at the cost of war, be used to cover this traffic. It is not to 



he supposed, we sbould recognise the Confederate States 
without exacting that thej should hold themselves bound 
by the spirit of the old compact between England and the 
Union of which they formed a part; and it will certainly 
be the duty of the Government to obtain such guarantees 
a?, without infringing the independence or afiVonting the 
jealous susceptibilities of the Southern peojde, will make it 
impossible that the Cf)nfcdorate ilag, Ihe flag which Lee, 
and Beauregard, and Stonewall Jackson have taught us to 
honour — shall never be disgraced, as the Federal colours so 
often were, by floating from the mast of a slaver. There 
will be no difliculty in obtaining such a treaty. The Con- 
federates have not the slightest desire to revive the slave 
trade ; their Constitution, their State laws, and the interests 
of their ruling class, as well as the strong opinion of the 
country, are against it. And they cannot conceive that 
their dignity would be compromised by doing what France 
and Spain, the United States and Brazil, have voluntarily 
done. There will be no difliculty, then, in making this war 
the means of ensuring the final extinction of the slave trade. 
Indeed, when the North was forced to abandon it, it was 
virtually destroyed."* 

This is poor consolation for Mr. Seward's renunciation of 
ancient principles. 

Dangerous, practically, this treaty has been, or may prove 
to be. By one of its provisions the police supervision of 
Great Britain is extended to a distance of thirty leagues, 
not from certain portions, but from the whole coast of Cuba. 
Now, waiving the apparent indecorum of defining the extent 
of such a concession by measurement from the limits of a 
friendly, tho' jealous power, it is apparent that aline of thirty 
leagues from Point Yeacos or Matanzas would touch the 
Florida Keys, so that our coast, supposing it still to be ours, 



* The StandarH. January fi. 1863. 



N 



— 39 — 

and narrow seas, are placed under this annoying surveillance. 
No other independent power on earth, not even Hayti ever 
made such a concession,* and this too, at a moment, when, 
in view of possible contingencies, it is the obvious policy of 
the Northern Government to remove as far away as possible 
the naval forces of European powers, who, tho' to-day neu- 
trals, may to-morrow become belligerents. In a letter from 
the British Charge d'AfFaires of September 13, 1862, 
is a formidable list of " Her Majesty's ships employed in the 
suppression of the slave trade at North America and the 
West Indies," comprising two line of battle ships, (an odd 
craft for such a service,) four frigates, four corvettes and 
eleven gun-boats, with an aggregate armament of 485 guns, 
twice as many as are appropriated to the whole continent 
of Africa from Sierra Leone to the mouth of the Red Sea. 
Of course the presence of such squadrons, however dis- 
creetly managed, leads to trouble. This volume contains 
more than one complaint of " unreasonable searches and 
seizures" (p. 284) under this very treaty, and the old story 
of harsh conduct to our " innocent merchantmen" begins 
to fill our newspapers,! 

If thus fruitless, and with this germ of possible mischief, 
can such a com} act be otherwise than discreditable in the 
estimation of foreign nations, and especially of that one 
great Power who, on this question of the freedom of the 
seas, has stood firmly by us ? On this topic, the volume is 
painfully silent, and if the French Government uttered or 
intimated sorrow, or dissent, or reproach, it has been sup- 

* Article IV., Treaty of Hayti with Great Britain, 1839. 

f The case of the " Morning Star," reported in the Evening Post of January 
16th, 1863. In August hist, Mr. Stuart, the British Charg^, informed Mr. 
Seward that Her JMajesty's ship GrifFen had captured and burned olF-Loando 
an American barque, titted for the slave trade, and belonging to New York. 
The letter was acknowledged by Mr. Seward, who oddly enough said, "I 
thank you for the information thus communicated, which is in every respect 
tnlirely acceptable and gratifying.'^ 



— 40 — 

pressed. The Spanish authorities were not so reticent, for 
we find in a despatch from Mr. Perry at Madrid, (p. 509) the 
following curious statement of what that Government 
thought, which we quote at length : 

*' At a recent interview with Mr. Calderon CoUantes, that 
" minister enquired if I had received a copy of the treaty 
"recently concluded between the United States and Eng- 
" land, concerning the mutual right of search, for the sup- 
"piession of the African slave trade. He was much sur- 
" prised that after combatting that principle so long, the 
" United States should have yielded now a right so exceed- 
" ingly liable to be abused in practice, and he was very 
" curious to know what provisions had been stipulated to 
" guard the exercise of the right from such abuse. I replied 
"regretting I could give no information other than what 
" Mr. Calderon had himself seen in the newspapers. I 
" understood, however, that the stoppage of the use of the 
" American flag in the slave trade was an object which 
" would naturally commend itself to the favor of the present 
" Government of the United States, and I enquired if Spain 
" had not herself conceded the same right. Mr. Calderon 
" said that she had, at a period in her history which could 
" not be recalled with pleasure, but that ever since he hira- 
" self had held the portfolio of foreign aflairs, he had been 
" desirous of an opportunity to re\'ise that whole treaty, in 
" which the right of search was thus granted to Great 
" Britain. The exercise of this right was vexatious, and 
" besides, the English were always talking, in l*arliaraent 
" and out, of their having purchased this right of Spain for 
" X40,000, sterling money, always putting their money for- 
" ward, and he (Mr. Calderon) would be exceedingly glad 
" of an opportunity to give them their £40,000, and have 
" the treaty back again. Mr. Calderon asked me if I sup- 
" posed the recent treaty would be ratified by the American 
" Senate. I replied to him that I had no reasonable doubt 



— 41 — 

** that it would be, and remarked that I supposed that 
*' England was now takmg steps to obtain the same conces- 
" sion from the Government of France. Mr. Calderon said 
" he had little doubt of it, but he wished to see the Ameri- 
" can treaty, as it might afford a basis for demanding a 
** revision of the Spanish treaty, as to the manner in which 
*' this right was to be exercised. Though perhaps this 
" conversation was not intended by Mr. Calderon to be 
" reported to you, I have thought it interesting. 

This seems, naturally enough, to have irritated Mr. Sew- 
ard, for, on the 2d August, he thus pettishly retorts, giving 
a fling at the Spanish authorities, which was neither dis- 
creet nor dignified. 

" Your despatch of July 11 (No. 69), has been received. 
" The African slave trade, which has been so long clandes- 
"tinely carried on from American ports, was a mercenary 
" traffic, without even the poor pretext that it brought 
■" labourers into our country, or that other or worse pretext, 
" that it was necessary to the safety or prosperity of any 
" State or section. It was carried on in defiance of our 
" laws, by corrupting the administration of justice. The 
" treaty to which j^ou refer contains no provisions that can 
" embarrass an honest and lawful trade, and none that can 
" inflict a wound upon the national pride. It was freely 
•*' offered by this Government to Great Britain, not bought^ 
" or solicited by that Government. It is in harmony with 
"the sentiments of the American people. It was ratified 
" by the Senate unanimously, and afterwards distinctly ap- 
" proved, with not less unanimity, by both Houses of Con- 
" gress. Not a voice has been raised against it in Ijie 
" country. I send you a copy of it for Mr. Calderon, as 
" you have requested." 

Thus, then, has Mr. Seward, without apparent compensa- 
tiou, bound all that is left of this Northern nation m chains, 
6 



_42 — 

from which there is no peaceful escape. That there is not 
a secret history in this inexplicable transaction, an under^ 
standing of future sympathy and co-operation between the 
contracting parties, the Lincoln and Russell Governments, 
in case their tenure of power is prolonged, we are far from 
affirming. The suspicion, the fear, the hope — describe it 
as -we may — that this sacrifice is not made in vain, and 
that the English administration may find it to be its interest 
to make this a substantial contract, by giving strength to 
the party who voluntarily tendered it, has more than once 
come like a dark shadow over us. An anti-slave-trade 
treaty with the North alone, would be the idlest of forms, 
except on the theory that, as heretofore, all the slave 
trading is to be carried on with Northern capital and in 
Northern bottoms. Then, it may be of v^lue, even if the 
Southern Confederacy be established. Otherwise, it is, as 
we have said, utterly fruitless. Fruitless, we have it shown 
to be as to immediate results. 

It was in this same month of March, that the administra- 
tion assembled and brought into action all its diplomatic 
array abroad, regular and irregular. Not only were Mr. 
Weed and the Bishops on the spot, but, as this volume 
shows, other combinations were initiated. 

The convocation of this new diplomatic Congress, was 
formally announced to our ministers abroad, who appear 
to have been confounded by the news. " When, in No- 
vember last," said Mr. Seward, "we thought we had rea- 
son to apprehend new and very serious dangers in Europe, 
the subject was taken into consideration by the President 
at a full meeting of the cabinet. It was understood that 
thi insurgents were represented abroad by. a number of 
active, unscrupulous, and plausible men, who manifestly 
were acquiring influence in societ}^, and in,the press, and 
employing it with dangerous efl:ect, and it was thought that 
such eftbrts could be profitably counteracted by the pre- 



sence in London and Paris of some loyal, high-spirited, and 
intellectual men, of social position and character. We con- 
sidered thai the presence of such persons there, unless they should 
act with more discretion than we could conjidently expect, would 
annoy, and possibly embarrass, our ministers abroad. It was 
decided that hazard must be incurred in view of dangers 
which seemed imminent." 

A better reason for not sending these semi-official agents 
abroad could hardly be given than in the lines we have 
ventured to italicise. So thought Mr. Adams, for we 
search this book in vain for any expression, on his part, of 
gratitude for the suggestion. Who the new agents were, 
does not appear in these despatches, though aliunde, we 
know all about them. The Bishops and Mr. Weed hurried 
to the rescue. The latter, the accredited friend, the almost 
partner of the Secretary of State, was received in England 
with great friendliness and apparent unreserve. He was 
the guest of Lady Russell, at Richmond Park, and duly 
wrote home letters to be printed in the Albany Evening 
Journal, narrating the local gossip which her ladyship be- 
stowed on him, and criticising the details of her household. 
Occasionally, his services were needed on a more public 
stage. Bishop Mcllvaine, who seems to have been in the 
service of the administration from the time of his visit to 
England, until the adjournment of the triennial conven- 
tion, in October, 1862, always active, meddlesome, intru- 
sive, sonaetimes needed the assistance of his lay colleague, 
and we find that Mr. Weed, the conservative of 1863, was 
not far behind the niost|extreme anti-slavery propagandists, 
in the spring of 1862. 

On the 3d February, 1862, Mr. Weed attended and ad- 
dressed a nieeting at ISTo. 2 Pall Mall, and, among other 
things, said : 'i As to the prospects of the future, the admin- 
istration not only desired, bat expected emancipation as 
the fruit and result of the war. Slavery was and would be 



— 44 — 

burned out of every acre and rood of territory conquered" 
from the rebels ; so that, by process of war and by legal 
enactment, if the United States Government were success- 
ful, slavery would cease to exist."* 

Not content with Mr. Weed and the Prelates, Mr. Sew- 
ard summoned Mr. Motley from Vienna to London to con- 
fer and co-operate with Mr, Adams. 

And here, let us pause over another wreck of reputa- 
tion which is seen through the haze of this official corre- 
spondence. Mr. John Lothrop Motley — not, as he tells us, 
the Emperor of Austria imagined (p. 557), " a German 
exile," but " a descendant of the early Pilgrims of New 
England," bad, before he was tempted into diplomatic 
paths, a high position in American authorship. Justly or 
unjustly, he had gained a large share of approval on both 
sides the Atlantic, and when his appointment to Austria 
was announced, those who were willing to judge Mr. Sew- 
ard kindly were content to see a parallel to the case of 
Washington Irving, whom Mr. Webster sent as Minister 
to Spain years ago, and whose official action, while it in- 
volved no neglect of public interests or duties, w^as im- 
proved by labour in the cause of letters, far dearer to him 
than politics. But "the descendant of the early Pilgrims" 
could not, and, we are bound to say, does not seem to have 
tried to, repress the inherited ancj inherent fanaticism which 
seems to be interwoven with the heart-strings of New Eng- 
land. Before he was appointed, he wrote an essay for 
the London Times on the Constitution, of which it was 
justly said by an able critic : " That its melodramatic style 



* London Record, February 3 : In curious contrast with this harangue 
is Mr. Weed's palinodes of 1863. "If," said he, "the North rejected 
abolition as a merely political test, will it be accepted no\^, when the lives of 
our sons and brothers, and the preservation of the country are involved ? We 
ask this question now in view of the concerted effort to narrow this mighty 
struggle for national existence down to an abolition crusade." 



~ 45 — 

■prevails widely in the American press, and is well adapted 
to tlie condition to wliicli it has reduced the American 
mind ; showing, as it does, how words may be made effective 
in clouding the mind, and how sentiments may be boldly set 
side by side with facts which utterly belie them."* Though 
startled by this, we were not prepared for such revelations 
of puerility and what we are tempted to call 'snobbishness' 
disclosed in the half-dozen despatches from Vienna which 
Mr. Seward has cruelly given to the world. We have nei- 
ther room nor patience to consider them in detail, but beg 
the reader, who may, naturally enough, in view of Mr. 
Motley's reputation, doubt the severe justice of our judg- 
ment, to examine for himself the despatch of ISTovember, 
1861, narrating his reception by the Emperor, and the con- 
cluding one of October, 1862, in which, with a poor garni- 
ture of familiar quotations, and a dismal continuity o 
platitudes, he discusses the position and character of the 
British Chancellor of the Exchequer, with whom, one 
would think, the Minister to Austria has no more concern, 
than with the Rajah of Sarawak, and to whose speech at 
Manchester he applies the gentle and gentlemanly criti- 
cism : " Blistered be the tongue that speaks of shame is the 
only and fit response to such rhetoric and such prophecy 
as Mr. Gladstone's." (p. 572.) 

Why, with such antecedents, and circumstances, Mr, Mot- 
ley was selected to go to London to help Mr. Adams 
would be a puzzle but for his assertion of his own fitness 
for the work. He is the "Mr. Lofty" of this diplomatic 
comedy. " I told Count Rechberg that I had recently had 
a very long and full conversation with Lord John Russell. 
&c." " I told him I had received similar assurances from 
other members of the English cabinet, &c." "He asked 



■* The Constitution and Mr. Motley. Philadelphia, 1861. 



4t) 



me what I thoiiglit of the attitude of France, and I told 
him thatM. Thouvenel had assured me, &c." ; and atlasthe 
winds up with a passage which we reproduce, as being as 
concentrated a specimen of egotism and official indiscre- 
tion as this volume contains. 

" One thing is very certain. The government here will 
' be very much influenced by the course of policy pursued 
' towards the United States by the British and French gov- 
' ernments ; and I am therefore glad that, in pursuance of 
' your instructions, I passed some time before coming to 
' my post informing myself at the fountain heads, in Eng- 
' land and France, of the probable nature of that policy. 
' I am constantly questioned on the subject by all with 
' whom I come in contact. Should a tory government 
' succeed the present cabinet in England, I anticipate much 
' trouble. Nothing can exceed the virulence with which 
' the extreme conservative party regard us, nor the delight 
' with which they look forward to our extinction as a na- 
' tion. They consider such a consummation of our civil 
' war as the most triumphant answer which could be made 
' to their own reform party. The hatred to the English 
' radicals is the secret of the ferocity and brutality with 
' which the Times, the Saturday Review, and other tory 
' organs of the press have poured out their insults upon 
' America ever since the war began. In the present ad- 
' ministration and its supporters, I know w^e have many 
' warm friends, warmer in their sentiments towards us 
' than it would be safe for them, in the present state of 
' parties, to avow." 

"What, we may diffidently ask, will be thought of the 
propriety and expediency of publishing such a despatch as 
this, if by any political accident Lord Derby and " the ex- 
treme conservative party" should come into power? 

^Hiether Mr. Motley did bring to Mr. Adams' aid his 
familiar acquaintance with the leaders of British politics, 



-_4Y — 

^oes not appear very clearly, but whether he did or uot, no 
result was attained. The aggregated influence of prelates 
and politicians in London availed naught. The ministry 
refused to recede a hair's breadth from their recognition of 
the belligerent rights of the South. The Alabama and 
Oreto, and that unadjudicated craft, the Bermuda, sailed 
from Liverpool, freighted with ammunition, or destined for 
destructive war on I^orthern commerce. Strict port disci- 
pline watched the Tuscarora at Southampton, and a British 
frigate literally convoyed the Nashville to sea. The poor 
little Saginaw was ordered away from Hong Kong.* The 
Emily St. Pierre was not given up. The Bull Dog (p. 228) 
carried " one Pegram and seven other persons" to officer 
" 290." In short, at the end of Mr. Seward's year, the cur- 
tain dropped on a scene of impotent diplomacy, which all 
his rhetoric cannot disguise. Mediation or intervention 
never was dreamed of in England ; and the belligerent re- 



* In April last, Mr. Seward wrote to Mr. Adams as to the "Chinese" 
Rebellion, a special despatch, which it would be unfair to suppress or muti- 
late. Its oddity, in view of everything at home and abroad, is superlative. 
" The reports we receive from China show that the insurrection there is be- 
coming very formidable, ond they leave it doubtful whether the British and 
French forcep now in Cliina are adequate to secure the inviolability of the 
persons and property of the subjects and citizens of the western powers 
dwelling in the commercial cities of that Empire. It is a matter of deep 
regret to us that our troubles at home render it hazardous to withdraw a part 
of our great land and naval forces from operating here, and send them to China 
to co-operate with the forces of the allies there. As you are well aware, the 
continuance of the insurrection in the United States is due to the attitudes of 
Great Britain and France towards our country. It would seem to be desirable 
for those two states to have our co-operation in China in preserving a com- 
lEcrce of vast importance to them as well as to ourselves. That co-operation 
we could give if we were relieved from the necessity for maintaining a block- 
ade and seige of the Southern ports. Moreover, the question may be well 
asked, Where is this tendency to insurrection, which Great Britain and France 
seem to us to be practically, although unintentionally, fostering, to end ? It 
breaks out in the Levant ; it grows flagrant on the China coasts ; it even lifts 
up its head in France. Is it not the interest of all great maritime states to 
repress or at least to discourage it ? The President does not expect ycu to 
make any special or formal suggestion of these views to the Britisli Govern- 
ment, but it seems to him you may properly use them, incidentally, with 
advantage to your intercourse with the British Gevernraent and British 
society." 



_48 — 

cognition, for the witlidrawal of which there was so iimch 
fruitless urgency, remains in as full force as on the day it 
was announced. "How far," said Mr. Adams, in one of 
his latest letters, "the question of a recognition of the 
insurgents will enter into the deliberation (of Parliament), 
I will not venture to predict. My opinion is that that 
event now depends almost entirely on the fortune of the 
"war. If we prove ourselves, by February next, no more able 
to control its results than we are at this moment, it will be 
difficult for ministers longer to resist the current of senti- 
ment leading in that direction in both Houses of Parlia- 
ment. Even the unpleasant alternative of appearing to 
uphold slavery against the action of the Government will 
be acquiesced in as an overruling necessity, dictated by the 
popular opinion. I feel it my duty to say this much, in 
order to prevent the smallest misconception of the existing 
state of things, on this side, in the minds of the Govern- 
ment at home." 

. K to be forewarned is to be forearmed, then, in the begin- 
ning of November, when this ominous despatch reached 
America, was the administration at Washington clad in 
proof; yet on the 10th of the same month. General 
McClellan was removed from his command and banished 
to the mild sympathies of Kew York and Boston, and the 
•chapter of disaster opened, which seems to have closed, in 
bloody disappointment, on the heights of Fredericksburg, 
at Vicksburg, and in the doubtful struggle at Murfrees- 
borough.* 

Turning to Mr. Seward's diplomacy in Paris, let us 
briefly and candidly state its course and its fruits. As 
tending to something like a result at the moment these 



* As to Fredericksburg, there is in General Looker's testimony before the 
Senate Committee the following inexplicable passage : " It was just dark. 
Finding I had lost as many men as my orders required me to lose, I suspended 
the attack." — Senate Document No. 71, page 25. 



— 49 — 

lines are written, tliej are very important. In it, one thing 
is very manifest, that Mr. Dayton never enjoyed the same 
confidential and cordial relations to the Government at 
home as did Mr. Adams, or Mr. Motley, or even Mr. Pike, 
of the Tribune ; and this, for no other apparent reason than, 
that a year ago, in the matter of the surrender of privateer- 
ing, Mr. Dayton had proved, not only that he had a will of 
his own, but that, when he yielded it to positive orders, he 
was right and the Government wrong.* There can hardly 
be conceived a position of greater embarrassment for an 
intelligent, patriotic and high spirited man, than that of 
Mr. Dayton during the anxious and busy year just ended. 
Accredited to a court whose master prides himself on his 
demeanour of reserve, if not, his policy of subtlety ; 



* The threat which, in July 1862, was made towards England, in February 
1863 is about to be aimed somewhere else. On the 17th instant, as these 
sheets are passing through the press, the Senate Bill authorizing privateers 
was dug from its forgotten grave and animated. I-t was passed in spite of the 
■opposition of the Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. No com- 
ment is needed on the following proceedings : 

" Mr. McDougall said he especially wanted this bill passed, for he believed 
that before Congress met again, we shcfuld be at war with a foreign Power, and 
should need all our force on sea and land. 

*' Mil. Sumner offered an amendment confining the operation of the bill to tlio 
suppression of the rebellion. He argued that we should not put anything in 
the bill like a menace. When we were engaged in a foreign war, then would 
be time enough to meet that question. 

" Mr. McDougall asked the Senator, as Chairman of the Committee on 

Foreign Relations, if we were not now threatened with foreign complications. 

" Mr. Sumner said he had no information that was not open to the Senate. 

" Mr. McDougall believed that beiore the meeting of another Congress we 

should be involved in a foreign war, and he wanted to have the country 

prepared. 

'' The amendment of Mr. Sumner was rejected — yeas 13, nays 22. 
" Mk. Sumner offered an amendment as a substitute, reviving the acts of 
1812 and 1813, concei-ning the letters of marque, and applying them to that 
portion of the United States in insurrection. Rejected. 

"Mr. Sumner offered another amendment, as a substitute, authorizing the 
Secretary of the Navy to hire any vessels needed for the national service, 
putting them in charge of officers commissioned by the United States, and 
giving them the character of national ships. Rejected — yeas 8, nays 28. 

" Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, offered a substitute, authorizing the President to 

pay any vessel regularly put into commission three times the value of any 

ship or ships captured belonging to the States now in insurrection. Rejected." 

The bill was then passed — yeas 27, nays 9 — no Democratic Senator voting. 

7 



— so- 
opposed by what, abroad, is a vaat power, social sym- 
pathy and antipathy; confronted by an able, astute, and, 
in his line of diplomacy, accomplished adversary ; unfa- 
miliar with the language of the refined and artificial 
society in which he was plunged ; Mr. Dayton had, at least, 
a right to a thorough and cordial support at home, and to 
something more than a chilling and formal endorsement of 
his conduct. Mr. Seward was never wearied of sending 
honied compliments to Mr. Adams as to his ability, his 
sagacity, his discretion, his "far-reaching grasp" (p' 201). 
To his colleague in France, he was far more sparing. 

But Mr. Dayton laboured under another disadvantage 
which was radical. Representing as he has and does, 
a jealous, suspicious, irritable Government impregnated 
thoroughly with the one idea of unity at any cost, and 
coercion to an illimitable extent — a Government which, 
whether right or wrong at the beginning, has learned 
nothing and forgotten nothing, and resents any diflerent 
view of the circumstances which surround it, it was diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, especially with the meagre informa- 
tion furnished him, to rise to 'the appreciation of fair play 
and really friendly feeling on the part of the Government 
to which he was accredited. Yet such has been the conduct 
and temper — as the impartial world admits — of the French' 
government from first to last — from the time when, long 
ago, M. Thouvenel, whom Mr. Dayton says was a friend, 
and whose displacement he regretted — gently hinted the 
possibility of the war becoming protracted and bloody, 
down to the last offer of friendly intervention, 'pendente lite, 
within the present month. This steady and considerate 
friendliness was disturbed by no hostile act — no departure 
from practical neutrality. No armed vessels left the ports of 
France — no contraband commodities were shipped thence. 
The indiscretions here, such as the ostentatious enlistment 
of the Orleans princes in the Federal array, or the welcome 



— 51 — 

to the Coude de Reus after he had broken away from the 
French co-operation in Mexico, seemed to make no impres- 
sion on the really friendly sentiment in France.* History 
has well settled the question, once as^itated, of the good 
faith of the Bourbon dynasty to us in our time of early 
trouble. It must, we think, pronounce the same judgment 
on the doings of the dynasty of their imperial successor. 

But Mr. Seward's Minister in ParU was not allowed to 
see this, or to act as if he even dreamed of it. The only 
really cordial and friendly despatch ever sent is one, sup- 
pressed in this collection, written in February, 1862, on the 
subject of Court presentations at the Tulleries, in which, 
after saying that "it is peculiarly uncomfortable at the pre- 
sent moment to find American citizens leaving their coun. 
try — a prey to factious and civil war — disturbing the Court 
of a friendly power, and embarrassing our representative 
there with questions of personal interest and pretension ;" 
Mr. Seward adds quite sensibly, though with a statelinesa 
of which he rarely divests himself, and at which, in con- 
nexion with the trivial topic of discussion, it is hardly pos- 
sible not to smile : — 

" Let the Emperor and Empress of France receive when 
" they will, and as many or few as they will, and let all 



* The treatment of the Orleans young gentlemen seems to have attracted ad- 
verse criticism in France. Some time between the 13th and 2ad of June, Mr. 
Dayton wrote a confidential despatch, (ISo. 164,) which is suppressed in this 
volume, but the iinswer shows to what it related. " The President appreciates 
the vigilance and the prudence which 'suggested your confidential despatch. 
It may be enough to say, iu reply, that the Comte de Paris and the Due de 
Chartres, after a year's service iu the army of the United States, in which 
tliey have condueted themselves with the utmost propriety and the highest 
gallantry, have returned to Europe. It is not to be doubted that they carry 
with them the afiectionate gratitude of the American people. This, however, 
is a sentiment won by tiiem, not for themselves alone, or even peculiarly, but, 
as in the case of Lafayette and Rochambeau, it is a sentiment won by them 
for France." The analogy to Lafayette is not happy. The first battle in 
which he served on this soil was a defeat, not comparable in its bloodiness to 
some we have encountered, but still an appalling defeat. He dia not return 
to France in the hour of disaster. 



" others, as well as those who are admitted, turn their at' 
" tention to the question how they can serve their country 
" abroad; and, if they find no better way to do it than by 
" making their attendance iu the saloons of the Tulleries, 
" let them return home to a country that now, for the first 
" time, and not for a long time, needs the active efforts of 
" every one of its loyal children to save itself from destruc- > 
" tion. Finally, above all things, have no question with the 
" Government of France on this subject. Rather introduce 
" nobody, however justly distinguished, than let a question 
" of fashion or ceremony appear in the records of the im- 
" portant period in which we are acting for the highest in- 
" terests of our country and of humanity." 

No word of cordiality comparable to this, is to be found 
anywhere else. Mr. Dayton's situation was a difficult one, 
and Mr. Seward did nothing to render it less so. Some- 
times he is — at least, so it seems to us, looking at these de- 
spatches in print — almost insulting, as, for instance, when, 
in March of last year, in answer to one in which Mr. Day- 
ton felicitated himself on accidentally hearing the views of 
the administration "from the newspapers," the Secretary 
Bends some meagre military news as to the operations 
against New Orleans, prefacing it with the conjecture : "7 
suppose I hazard nothing of lyuhllciiy here by informing you that' 
General Butler, with an adequate land force, and Captain 
Porter, with a fleet, are already in motion to secure and 
hold New Orleans." It was about the same time that Mr. 
Dayton wrote about the cotton supply, and said: " Do not 
delay action, I beg of you, a day beyond the time when 
you can act on this subject with propriety," and the answer 
was a cold, unsatisfactory one of eight lines, in sharp con- 
trast with the pages the Secretary was writing to Mr. 
Adams, and Pike, and Cameron. Well might Mr. Dayton 
say, in reply, "I was a little surprised by the vague and ge- 
neral terms in which you expressed your intentions, and felt 



— 58 — 

that the Government heu^ would not consider them as ex- 
plicit and satisfactory as those heretofore used." To this, 
or other despatches like this, the ans^ver is stern and repul- 
sive. "To bring the Emperor to this conviction is your 
present urgent duty. If successful in performir^g it, you 
will render a benefit to France worth more than any con- 
quest, while you will direct a stream of healing oil upon 
the wounds of our afflicted land." To be thus reminded 
of one's duty, when conscious of performing it, is anything 
but agreeable. 

In August, Mr. Dayton's sufferings became intolerable, 
and compelled him to send a despatch to Washington 
which tells its tale of suffering and injustice with an em- 
phasis that, if anything could, must have made an im- 
pression :— - 

" It would seem to me that you must have some infor- 
*' mation, beyond what I receive here, as to the views of 
" France, from her minister at Washington. If so, may I 
" beg that you will communicate it ? I am sure that I 
*' need not say that I ask this information from no idle 
" curiosity, but as something essential to a useful discharge 
" of my duties here. iTothing can be more embarrassing 
*' than being in the dark upon matters which may have 
'" transpired between yourself and the French minister at 
*' Washington. As an illustration of this, the only know- 
" ledge I had of the actual purpose of Mr. Mercier's re- 
" cent visit to Richmond was obtained firsi from Lord 
" Cowley, the British ambassador, and next, at second 
" hand, from the Emperor. You will, under these circum- 
" stances, appreciate at once mj^ embarrassments in falling 
" into conversation with Lord Cowley on this subject. I 
" make this reference, not at all as matter of complaint, but 
" only as an illustration of my meaning, when I allude to 
" embarrassments arising from a want of knowledge of 
" what may have transpired, if anything, between yourself 



— 54-^ 

" and Mr. Mercier. I know and fully appreciate the vast 
" extent of your labours, and it may well be that nothing 
*' has recently- been communicated by the French govern- 
" ment. If so, I beg that you will excuse me for directing 
" your attention to the subject." 

This was in August, and Mr. Mercier's visit to Richmond 
was in April; and though Mr. Dayton had been duly in- 
formed of his having gone, no word was ever sent to him 
as to why he had gone, or what was the result of his visit. 
Mr. Mercier, as we now know, wrote all about it to his go- 
.vernment instantly on his return. Mr. Seward never told 
his representative abroad anything, till he supplicated for 
some information, and if he did afterwards, it is suppressed 
in this publication (p. 378). 

And why, let us here pause and ask, why this mystification 
on our side as to Mr. Mercier's visit to Richmond when there 
was none on the other — why was Mr. Dayton thus kept in 
the dark while the French Minister of Foreign Afiairs was 
thoroughly well informed, and when the only thing the out- 
side world knew was, that the instant the Gassendi brought 
the mysterious wayfarer back, the President and Mr. Seward 
rushed to the Navy Yard to greet him and find out all 
he chose to tell them?* These questions are more 
easily answered now than they could have been a fort- 
night ago before copies of the "Livre Jaune " reached this 
country. 

The truth we take to be, that among Mr. Seward's vir- 
tues is not that of silence. He talks, we imagine, as fluently 
as he writes, and probably with no greater precision. If Mr. 
Wendell Phillips is to be credited, and on mattiers of fact, 



* In curious and impressive contrast with this almost boisterous welcome, 
was the austere reserve of the Confederate Executive to Mr. Mercier. 
•' N'ajant pas cru devoir demander ;'i voir le President Davis, il ne m'a ^i6 
fait, a ce sujet, aucune insinuation, non plus que le moindre effort pour donner 
a ma pr^^sence une autre signification que celle que I'avoit rcellement." 



O') 



we know no reason that he should not be, Mr. Seward, 
before his accession to office, talked Mr. Buchanan's Secre- 
tary of State into a sort of coufidence, that he was, and 
meant to be, a conservative and Constitution-respecting 
man, and yet it is to be doubted if he remembers anything 
about it now. So, we imagine, with Mr. Mercier, for on no 
other principle can we account for the palpable difference 
of recollection between the two witnesses who have recently 
been upon the stand, and whose testimony, in no uncharita- 
ble spirit, we parallelize: 



Mr. Mercier to Mr. Thouvcnel, April 
VSik, 18»Jli. 

•' Mr. Seward told me that. 1 might 
add, if 1 found an opportune occasion, 
that according to liis convictions, the 
North was animated by no spirit of 
i^venge, and that, for himself, he 
would be most happy to find himself 
again in the Senate with all those the 
South might choose to send there. 

" I undertook this journey (to Rich- 
mond) v/ith the explicit acquiescence 
of the Secretai-y of State, and, as it 
seemed to me, according to his de- 
sire." 



Mr. Seward to the President, February 
2th, 1863. 
"No suggestions were made to M. 
Mercier, by the Secretary of State, 
that induced or were designed or cal- 
culated lo induce him to undertake a 
mission to Hichniond in April last, or 
at any other time. He was not then, 
nor has he or any other person ever 
been authorized by this Government 
or b}' the Secre'ary of State to make 
any representations of any kind or on 
any subject, to the insurrectionary 
agents or so-called authorities at 
Richmond, or to hold any communi- 
cation with them on behalf of this 
Government.'' 



" Since the 4th of March, 1861, no 
communication, direct or indirect, 
formal or informal, has been had by 
this Government or by the Secretary 
of State with the insurgents, their 
aiders or abettors." 



" Passports were granted at the 
request of those distinguished per- 
sons respectively, and not on any sug- 
gestion of the Government or Secre- 
tary of State. They severally travelled 
in a private and unofficial capacity. 
They bore no communication, whether 
formal or informal, verbal or written, 
from this Government or from the 
Secretary of State to any of the in- 
surgents, and they brouglit none from 
any such persons to this Government 
or to the Secretary of State." 



We cannot but think that the suppressed passages of Mr. 
Seward's despatch, of the 2-3d of August, in answer to Mr. 
Dayton's supplication for light as to Mr. Mercier's visit to 
Richmond might illustrate this problem, and give us Mr. 
Seward's version of his interviews, written at a time when 
the radical opposition of his own party was not threaten- 
ing him ; and Lord Lyons must know what Mr, Mercier 
told him at the time of the conferences. 

But let us hasten on to the closing scene of this busy 
year as it is revealed, not only in these papers, but in those 
which have been more recently given to the world on both 
sides of the Atlantic. It is full of interest. 

The clouds began to orather in France as earlv as Octo- 
ber, when M. Thouvenel was superseded, and M. Drouyn 
de L'Huys came into office. Mr. Dayton saw the signifi- 
cance of it. "We lose a friend," said he, "at an impor- 
tant point," and one cannot but stnile at the meagre conso- 
lation that he finds, in the fact artlessly and honestly stated, 
that (speaking of M. Drouyn de L'Huys) "his perfect know- 
ledge of our language will, to a certain extent, facilitate our 
official intercourse," The President's proclamation reached 
Paris soon after, accompanied by a most remarkable min- 
atory despatch from Mr. Seward, and was communicated 
to the Minister of Foreign Afiairs, who simply said, 
that " ours was a great question, and that he should 
endeavour to study it as soon as possible." This was 
on the 21st of October ; and, in nine days from that 
date, having, it is to be supposed, mastered "the great 
question," M. Drouyn de L;Hu3S wrote his despatch to the 
English and Russian cabinets, asking them to unite in an 
ofi:er of friendly iutoduction with a view to an armistice. 
This important step does not appear to have been known 
to Mr. Dayton till after the 6th, for, on that day, he sends 
an account of a conference he had had with the French 
Minister, who told him "that everything remained as it 



— 57 — 

had done for some time past. That France, in comm6n 
with the other powers of Europe, very much regretted the 
war and its continuance, but that they had no purpose to 
intervene or interfere in any way." How far this is con- 
sistent with perfect candour, or how far a public man is 
bound to reveal to a party in interest, the fact of the mere 
initiation of a correspondence is a question we do not 
feel competent to decide. Mr. Seward, anxious enough to 
find ground of censure, does not seem to have found fault 
with it, but puts his complaint on what seems to us, 
and will seem to Europe, the sharp ground, that the 
action of the Great Powers "was a conference" — "an in- 
'^onclusive conference" he calls it — to which the United 
States should have been invited. 

But Mr. Seward and the Cabinet at Washington found it 
easier and safer to condemn their own Minister than to re- 
sent anything that France might do; and, accordingly, the 
papers recently volunteered to the public and which, by- 
the-by, were not given, until the contents of the "Livre 
Jaune" reached this country and rendered our 'Premier's'- 
tenure of office and influence precarious — these papers re- 
veal an act of injustice to a distant and patriotic public 
servant, which it is due to common fair play to expose and 
condemn. If Mr. Dayton were within reach, it looks as if 
Mr. Holt or the Government detectives might be directed 
against him, and as if the Administration were glad of a 
chance to rebuke him for his refractoriness a vear ago on 
the private war question; or to verify the threat which has 
been attributed to Mr. Lincoln, that, as New Jersey had 
never done anything for him, be would take the first chance 
to punish jSTew Jersey. 

What is Mr. Dayton's offence, that called for Secretary 
Seward's rebuke ? On the 6th of l!Tovember, as we have 
seen, he knew nothing of the Armistice proposition. He did • 
know of it, however, before the 16th, for, on that day, he 
8 



— 58 — 

wrote a remonstrance — earnest, respectful, confident, though 
inefiectual remonstrance, directed mainly to convince tlie 
French minister that he was mistaken in supposing that 
there was, or ever had been, an equalit}^ of strength between 
the contending forces here, or that, " after so much blood- 
shed, they are now in the same position as at first." There 
was but one phrase in this letter, which, by possibiHty, 
could give oifence at Washington. It was that in which he 
did some sort of justice to the valour of the confederates. 
"In Virginia," said Mr. Dayton, "the insurgents have ad- 
vanced and retreated. They have gained battles and have 
lost them. I do not mean to deprecate their gallantry; 
they are yet my countrymen, and here, at least, they have 
shown equality of strength." 

When this despatch reached the State Department, we 
were on the eve of the hideous sacrifice at Fredericks- 
burg, when the Administration knew they were pursuing 
a course which involved terrible hazard, and when it 
was "treasonable" to admit even to themselves, that, in 
Virginia, there had been, and might be, again " equality of 
strength." The War Department, or Presidential orcers, 
had been issued to make the bloody experiment against 
the frowniug.batteries which overlooked the Rappahannock. 
The Cabinet was anxious and irritable. Mr. Dayton had 
written a despatch on the 10th of JSTovember, which has not 
been 'printed, and which contained evidently some exas- 
perating hint, or some annoying inquiry as to what had 
been said to Mr. Mercier, or what Mr. Mercier had been 
authorized to say. It was a subject on which Mr. Seward 
was nervous, and he says : — 

"In reply to a suggestion in your despatch, it is proper 
" for me to say that neither M. Mercier nor any other per- 
" son has had the least warrant from any authority of the 
" United States for representing to his Government that 
" the President would be disposed to entertain any propo- 



»» 69 — 

" sition in regard to the action of this Government in the 
" conduct of our domestic attliirs from any foreign quarter 
" whatsoever. The exact contrary is, in effect, all that has 
" ever passed between all the ministers residing here and 
" this department. Y"ou will judge whether it is iraport- 
" ant to clear up this point at Paris." 

On, or immedately before, the 5th of December, Mr. Day- 
ton's remonstrance and argument against the French pro- 
ject arrived, and Mr. Seward, as if angry that anybody but 
himself should argue, or prophecy, or " discourse," * sends 
a despatch to Mr. Dayton, the import of which cannot be 
mistaken :— 

Department of State, | 
Washington, Dec. 5th, 1862. / 
Sir : Your despatch of Nov, 18, jSTo. 227, has been re- 
ceived. Having already indicated the course which the 
President has decided to adopt concerning the late pro- 
ceedings of the French government, it is not necessary, now 
for me to review the note which, in the absence of instructionSy 
you have written to M. Drouyn de L'Huys. 
I am sir, your obedient servant, 

Wm. H. Seward. 

And, on the 11th, he repeats this reprimand, showing 
that, had the French answer been other than it was, the 
language of rebuke would have been still stronger: — 

"From my previous despatches you will probably have 
" inferred that the President did not expect you to open a 
" correspondence with M. Drouyn de L'Huys upon the sub- 
" ject of the proposition concerning American affairs, which 
" the Emperor has recently submitted to the Emperor of 
" Russia and the Queen of Great Britain. Insomuch as you 
*' have done so without consulting this government, and have thus 



* " I do not discourse to-day upou the military position." — Mr. Seward to 
Mr. Adams, page 879 



— 60 — 

" drawn forth from the imperial government a frank and 
'" friendly aiiswer, it is oaly proper that you should now in- 
'' form M. Drouyn de L'llays that his uote has been sub- 
" mitted to the President, and that he is gratified with the 
" explanations it gives of the present policy of the Empe- 
" ror iu regard to the United States." 

With Mr. Dayton's manly and earnest reply, which shows 
how deeply he felt the wrong that had been done, this chap- 
ter of mismanaged statesmanship may be said to close : — 

" Paris, December 23, 1862. 

''Sir: Your despatch of December 5, IS'o. 265, is re- 

" ceived. You simply acknowledge the receipt of my de- 

" spatch of iSTovember 18, ISTo. 227, and say that, 'having 

" already indicated the course which the President has de- 

" cided to adopt concerning the late proceedings of the 

" French government, it is unnecessary for me to review 

" the note, which, in the absence of instructions, you (I) 

" have written to M. Drouyn de L'Huys.' I had supposed 

" that that note, as it did not assume to indicate any po- 

" licy, but merely to sum up briefly the successes of our 

" army and the governmental resources, iu hopes of its 

" having wrought in any future deliberation of this go- 

" verument, could not fail at least to meet the approbation 

" of the department. My general instructions in reference 

" to the subject-matter were most ample, and I had held 

" verbal conference with M. Drouyn de L'Huys on the sub- 

" ject before. He told me what he had done ; and I could 

" answer when, peihaps, the government could not. The 

" emergency, I thought, not only justified, but required, 

" that, in view of the possible future, I should put my ver- 

" bal suggestions in writing. As one useful result, at all 

" events, I have received the important communications of 

" M. Drouyn de L'Huys, of November 23d last, a copy of 

" which accompanied my despatch, No. 231. I may add, 



— Gl -< 

" also^tluit 1 felt that it was but just to myself that my 
'* countrymen, as well as the government, should see and 
" know that I had not failed, in the crisis which had oc- 
" curred, fairly to represent its condition, 

"I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

" Wm L. Dayton." 
Nothing now remains but a sort of postscript of negotia- 
tions or correspondence, the interest and import of which 
cannot be measured till we have the news of the manner 
in which it is received on the other side of the Atlantic ; 
Mr. Seward's last published despatch to Mr. Dayton, of the 
6th February, being now on the ocean, having been printed 
before it was sent to its destination. Its issue is quite as 
momentous as was the undecided question of the Trent. 

The reader of these pages must have seen the clear con- 
viction under which they are written, that the action of the 
French Government from first to last, with perhaps one ex- 
ception, has been candid, entirely ingenuous and friendly. 
Ko credit perhaps is due for this, for the interest France 
has in the integrity and welfare of the United States, as 
they once were, is palpable. We believe Mr. Drouyn de 
L'Huys said the actual truth when he wrote : "I assure 
you that our friendly dispositions have not changed. If, 
some day, the Americans, tired of turning their valour 
against themselves, should wish to have recourse to us, in 
order to seek, in concert, the means of terminating this 
conflict, they would find us always ready, associated with 
other powers or separately, to aid them with our co-opera- 
tion, and to testify by our good offices, the feelings which 
have not ceased to animate France in regard to them." 
But it is also apparent, that Mr. Lincoln's Government, as 
represented and controlled by Mr. Seward, never thought 
so, or if they did, have never been able so far to reconcile 
it with their poor notions of policy and their craven fears 
of the radical element, to be willing to say so. 



=— 1)2 — 

It is impossible to regard the decision ou the last 
French proposition of a negotiation, pending hostilities, in 
any other light, or to think of it, without a just solicitude as 
to the possible consequences of a refusal to listen to the 
voice of friendly counsel, its object being peace — peace 
among brethren, "for such," says Mr. Dayton, "we yet 
are" — peace in an agonized and bloodstained land — peace 
with the chances of seeing a restoration on this con- 
tinent, of great commonwealths, wliich may raise the Ameri- 
can name and prowess from the abyss in which tbey have 
now sunk. One of two consequences, it requires no skill 
of prophesy to know, must follow — that France (and with 
it the other great powers), wearied 6f the material sacrifices 
they have been making, and angered at the obduracy with 
which all intercession is rejected, may recognize the South- 
ern Confederacy, and give it the moral support which mere 
recognition will confer — or that, weariness and disgust 
taking another course, they may leave us to the arbitra- 
ment which we have chosen, and which no human power, 
no course of events, no success, no disappointment, induces 
us to relinquish. 

"Why, but for motives purely personal and having refer- 
ence to the microcosm of small politics, in which he has 
always moved, Mr. Seward should rudely have re- 
fused to listen to the counsel, for it was nothing 
more, and not intervention nor mediation, of the French 
Government, it is difficult to understand, One 'may 
imagine, indeed, how it might have been turned to the 
prejudice of the Confederates, if they had refused to accede 
to it. It is difficult to see any reason for our refusing it. Still 
it has been refused, and we must abide the issue, as we did 
that of the Trent retraction, with deep solicitude, and, as 
Mr. Seward hopes, no doubt, with a readiness, should no 
evil result follow, to claim it as a new diplomatic triumph. 

Were it not a subject so full of gravity in every respect, 



— 1)8 — 

it would not be unprofitable, before the judgment of what 
Mr. Seward somewhere, in truly Chinese style, calls " the 
outside world," is known, to look at it critically, for the 
conduct of the whole aifair is very characteristic. Mr. 
Dayton communicated the fact that the Emperor meant to 
offer his friendly counsel, in a note, made very laconic by 
his sense of recent injury. The counsel was offered on the 
3d of the present month, in language, the friendly, deferen- 
tial tone of which could not be surpassed. Commissioners 
were to be named, privately and informally, if need be. 
They were to meet — that is, if both belligerents agreed, 
and, if they did not, the advantage enured to the one who 
did, and, in the language of the French despatch, which, to 
our ears, sounds like the accents of a kind and anxious 
friend : 

"In place of the accusations which North and South 
"mutually cast upon each other at this ^time, would be 
" substituted an argumentative discussion of the interests 
'■'■ which divide them. They would seek out, by means of 
" well-ordered and profound deliberations, whether these 
" interests are definitively irreconcileable, whether separa- 
" tion is an extreme which can no longer be avoided, or 
" whether the memories of common existence, whether the 
" ties of any kind which have made of the North and of 
" the South one sole and whole federative state, and have 
" borne them on to so high a degree of prosperity, are not 
" more powerful than the causes which have placed arms 
^' in the hands of the two populations." 

To this counsel, in three days, Mr. Seward sent his an- 
swer of denial. It is but fair to say that his attitude, rela- 
tively to his own party just now, is not favourable to repose, 
or deliberation, or conciliatory action. The temptation to 
be exacting and repellant, and denunciatory is very great 
at this moment. It has not beeu resisted. The answer 
is dated on the 6th, and was, as we have said, instantly 



— 64 — 

published, it has all the marked peculiarities of Mr. "Sew- 
ard's rhetoric. No one else, ou the roll of statesmen or 
such as claim to be statesmen, would venture at this mo- 
ment of anxious suspense to say, as he does, that the Fede_ 
ral Government now holds half of Is^orth Carolina and Mis- 
sissippi, and one-third of South Carolina !* I^o one but 
Mr. Seward would insinuate to a courteous correspondent 
that he had, to use his peculiar words, " taken other light " 
to guide his footsteps than such as was radiated from his 
Department, or would, all things considered, be surprised 
if he had. No one else would have described the people 
of this country "as a Peace Demociacy.*" No one but 
a sanguine man, like Mr. Seward, would ve nture to say, and 
hope to be believed, "that our credit is adequate to the 
existing emergency," or would at this time of day, revive 
the cant of loyal men in the South represented in Con- 
gress, the representatives being refugees elected by military 
authority, — and, least of all, no one, we are very sure, but 
Mr. Seward, would meet the practical and, if not practical, 
perfectly intelligible, suggestion of a commission on neutral ' 
ground, with what we can construe in no other way than the 
poor sarcasm of saying that the Congress of the United 
States is the proper "forum for debates between alienated 
parties," whose "vacant seats are inviting back the Sen- 
ators and "Representatives of the discontented." Whether 
the force and point of this sarcasm will be appreciated by 
the Imperial councils, we do not pretend to conjecture. 
Mr. Dayton, in one of his moments of despondency last sum- 
mer, well said : "At a court where there is a power — a 



* The official paper at Washington, which prints "from the original in the 
State Department," makes, on this extraordinary statement, the following just 
comment : " Accustomed as we have been to the complaints of factious 
politicians, tliis brief retrospect of our Army and Navy, will only surprise the 
American people less than the great Power for whose benefit it is made." — 
Chronicle, February 14th, 1862. 



— 65 — 

thinking, acting power — behind the miDistry, we can never 
feel quite sure of our position ;" and it is on the decision 
of that Power, when he shall have received Mr. Seward's 
rebuke, that more depends than can be easily measured. 
As we have said, action and inaction are alike portentous. 
The deep interest of these later revelations have led us 
away from the immediate subject of review, and having 
exhausted our space, we shall not recur to it. Attention 
has been naturally directed to Mr. Seward's " diplomacy " 
with the two leading foreign powers, but there is a vast 
fund beside, on which we4iave not drawn. The correspond- 
ence with Russia, whence Mr. Clay wrote (and Mr. Seward 
prints) that " money and men should be sent into Ireland, 
India, and all the British dominions, all over the world, to 
stir up revolt ; for our cause is just, and vengeance will 
sooner or later overtake that perfidious aristocracy ;" and 
Mr. Cameron informed the government that " the foun- 
tains of Peterhoff were set in operation and a sumptuous 
dinner provided" for his benefit; and Prince Gortachow 
told Mr. Taylor, as late as October : " Your situation is 
getting worse and worse. The chances of preserving the 
Union are growing more and more desperate. Can nothing 
be done to stop this dreadful war ?" — is very suggestive. 
So is that with Spain, and Mexico, where Mr. Corwin 
amused himself with making treaties which were rejected, 
and the ^Mexicans, on the faith of them, drawing bills 
which were protested ; and Prussia, and Holland, and 
Japan, and China — and the Central American States, 
who rose as one man against Mr. Lincoln's negro deporta- 
tion scheme, and, as our ministers said, " regarded it as the 
greatest degradation for the country to be overrun with 
blacks" (p. 891), or " to be visited by a plague of which 
the United States desired to rid themselves." (p. 900.) 
Morocco, where a consul with a guard of Moors captured 

two of the officers of the Sumter, and sent them home in 
9 



— 66 — 

it'ons, to be diseharged "or exchanged as prisoners of war, is 
a curious chapter ; and most curious and discreditable of 
all is that of Brazil, where Mr. "Webb insisted on making, 
at his reception, " a longerepeech" than his predecessor, and 
whose style of writing to his Government and mode of 
diplomatic action, may be judged of by the following pas- 
sage from one of his despatches to Mr. Seward : 

"Robert G. Smith, our late consul, was an open-mouthed 
" traitor and a loud talker. lie said, on different occasions, 
" 'Meade is the greatest traitor of the two, and if he ever 
" gets back to Virginia, it will be in consequence of his 
" disguising himself.' He said he dared not show himself 
" in New York or any Northern State; and finally left here 
" with his wife, who is from Maine, in an 'English ship for 
" Liverpool. My impression is, that he has sailed for Que- 
" bee under a feigned name, and if at the North, he is 
" doubtless somewhere in the vicinity of his wife's rela- 
" tions. It is fortunate for him that he is not here, as he 
" would unquestionably find himself a passenger on board 
*' a coffee ship bound for New York, and under command 
" of a loyal shipmaster, as there would be no difficulty in 
*' sending the traitors home without coming in collision 
*' with the Brazilian authorities. Our consul reports that 
*' a very decidedly better feeling exists among all Ameri- 
" cans here, and that the oath of allegiance is cheerfully 
" taken by nine-tenths of the shipmasters, while even 
" those of rebel proclivities admit its justice, and, after 
" making wry faces, take the oath sooner than be refused 
" their papers. Some of them had sworn roundly that 
" they never would take the oath prescribed ; and it is a 
" matter of great exultation and pride with the loyal mas- 
" ters to perceive how thoroughly the blusterers, who 
" boasted of their secession propensities and their seces- 
" sion flags, have been humbled before the authority of the 



— 67- 

" United States Government exeix-ised in the most quiet 
" way possible." 

This review is closed in a spirit not more cheerful than that 
in which it was begun. If the civil war, in which Provi- 
dence, for our national wrong-doings, has plunged us, had, 
in its fearful processes, evolved one master spirit — one 
great man, Soldier or Statesman, on whom, as the darkness 
and the danger grew, the hope of the nation might rest, 
and who should seem to be able to lead us out of the laby- 
rinth in which we are condemned to wander, there would 
be a sort of consolation. But mediocrity, or less than me- 
diocrity, reigns everywhere. It is the time and the scene 
of shallow — half-educated, light-minded men in executive 
council. Day after day rolls on, and the hideous mono- 
tony of blood is only varied by revelations of corruption 
and peculation in places high and low — from the gigantic 
contractors of unseaworthy fleets down to the colonel who 
cheats the Government by forging dead soldiers' names. 
Fierce fanaticism has full sway in the cabinet and out of 
it. It seems to be the only positive principle ; and before 
it, the Constitution and its guarantees have been broken 
down. For this conquest — for this triumph of lawless 
less power over constitutional right — for this connivance 
against knowledge in the imagined exigencies of the times 
to overthrow the law — for tl^e unlawful arrests and cruel 
imprisonments that have been perpetrated and are yet jus- 
tified-— for the foreign policy of the Government, which, as 
we have tried to show, has gained nothing and sacrificed 
everything, and has now brought us back to where we 
were little more than a year ago — a position of anxious de- 
pendence on the will of strangers — for all this, no one, in 
our poor judgment, is more responsible than the public 
man whose writings we have endeavoured fairly to review; 
and who now, unless rumour be utterly false, distrusted and 
proscribed by the radicals of his own party, is seeking to be 



— 68 — 

the leader, in conjunction with the kindred spirits who have 
always clustered round him, in a new Pseudo-Conservative 
party, who imagine they can restore to life the Union 
which they they have stabbed, and the Constitution they 
have violated. The quotation is trite, but it has an actual 
truth, even in its misapplication : — 

" Non tali auxilio. Nee defensoribus istis 
Tempus eget." 

The Ship of State is among the reefs and breakers, with 
gloom and danger threatening outside. The pilot to 
weather the storm is not among those on deck. The hands 
which steered it into peril cannot be trusted for rescue — 
the chief mate least of all. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



Ill 

013 700 979 1 



